








trrmririii 




Class 

Book_ 
Copyright N 1 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



WHEEL-CHAIR 
PHILOSOPHY 



BY 

JOHN LEONARD COLE 



Introduction by 
WILLIAM VALENTINE KELLEY 




NEW YORK: EATON & MAINS 
CINCINNATI: JENNINGS & GRAHAM 



Kv 



8V45?iT 



Copyright, 1913, by 
JOHN LEONARD COLE 



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©CLA350824 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER I 

PAGE 

The Call to the Chair 1 

CHAPTER II 
Lessons Learned in a City Hospital 21 

CHAPTER III 
Lessons Learned in a Sanitarium 70 

CHAPTER IV 
Cm Bono ? 112 

CHAPTER V 
From the Chair into the Pulpit 135 



in 



A NOTEBOOK 

Kept by a Pupil During a Two Years' 
Course in the School of Affliction 

Being Some Reflections on Life, Scrip- 
ture, and Events, Not Formulated in the 
Schools of Erudition, but Painfully Evolved 
in the School of Affliction and Disappoint- 
ment, Under the Loving Guidance of the 
Head-Master, Who Has Been Through a 
Course More Severe, and Taken Highest 
Degrees in the Same; Now Set Down in 
Order, as Enunciated from the Chair, with 
the Hope that Some Who Are Grappling 
with the Same Difficult Problems May 
Find Cheer to Lighten the Task, and 
Encouragement to Look Up to the Perfect 
Teacher and on to the Prize. 



INTRODUCTION 

This book of tragic origin is one of the 
few real books; born, not made; extorted, 
not planned. First it was lived, and then 
it wrote itself; a plain artless narrative 
of austere experience, belonging in that 
respect in the same general class with 
General Grant's Memoirs and Booker T. 
Washington's Up From Slavery: real rec- 
ords, vivid and true and terse and tense 
from start to finish. 

In his "Easy Chair" in the back of 
Harper's Monthly Magazine George Wil- 
liam Curtis sat for many years discoursing 
mellifluous wisdom on many themes with 
inimitable charm, irresistible persuasive- 
ness, and unsurpassed dignity; all his fine 
faculties in free, graceful, splendid play, 
making the "Chair" as "easy" for him 
as he made it attractive to thousands. 
To that most gifted editor in his "Easy 
Chair" multitudes listened as to Aldrich's 

vii 



viii INTRODUCTION 

Hassan Ben Abdul at the Ivory Gate of 
Bagdad; "and when he spoke, the wisest, 
next to him was he who listened/ 5 

There's a reason why multitudes should 
listen to our brave friend discoursing here 
in this little book from his Uneasy Chair; 
so far, indeed, from being easy as to be 
synonymous with pain, privation, and de- 
pendence, its occupant, the broken, wasted, 
haggard remnant of a young man, help- 
lessly chafing against his powerlessness, but 
dauntless forever in his unconquerable soul 
and never letting go his dearest hopes and 
most cherished plans. 

This Wheel-Chair discourse has one value 
not possible to "Easy-Chair" philosophy. 
Its poignant pathos has such a penetrating 
note of reality as will pierce the hearts of 
all who read. Its web is woven of reality 
upon the loom of actual life; every thread 
of it is authentic, spun not of fancies or 
hearsay, but out of a brave sufferer's own 
sensitive vitals, after the silkworm's fashion. 

However slightingly any may be accus- 
tomed to think of philosophy in general, 



INTRODUCTION ix 

none can despise or discredit this Wheel- 
Chair Philosophy. Some may share the 
contempt Romeo felt for philosophy when 
the Friar commended it as "adversity's 
sweet milk/' and may nod approvingly at 
Shakespeare's scoff, "There was never yet 
philosopher that could endure the tooth- 
ache patiently." But here is philosophy 
at which none may scoff, since it has en- 
dured prolonged torture compared to which 
the toothache is a brief titillation, the 
momentary tickling of a feather; philosophy 
not framed at leisure in "the still air of 
delightful studies/' but hammered into 
shape at white heat between the furnace 
and the anvil. Through age-long sleepless 
nights and days of dire agony these chap- 
ters knit themselves into coherence amid 
circumstances from which the world would 
no more look for philosophy to issue than 
it would expect Kipling's toad under the 
harrow to evolve a philosophy when iron 
tooth-points were crushing his bones and 
tearing out his entrails. 

When we sit back and contemplate this 



x INTRODUCTION 

little book after reading it, it seems like 
a tray full of bright double eagles, gold 
tried in the fire and purified of dross, 
coined in the mint of sharp experience, and 
stamped with the superscription "In God 
we trust"; and worth more for the actual 
business of practical life than all the 
theodicies ever elaborated in the peaceful 
seclusion of a theologian's comfortable 
study. 

Out of his wheel chair our philosopher 
stepped at last, "a walking miracle. " To 
find himself after so many long months 
able to take a slow, creeping walk on two 
crutches down the carpeted hall of the 
sanitarium was to him, he tells us, "the 
cause of as great joy and as much con- 
gratulation as the winning of a Marathon 
race would be to an athlete." The writer 
of this introduction stood by that wheel 
chair now and then, and later witnessed 
some of those first painful attempts to 
walk. The author's amazing recovery and 
restoration to his "loved employ" full of 
the pluck and buoyancy of tested faith 



INTRODUCTION xi 

and of valiant young manhood seem almost 
like a miraculous fulfillment of the prophecy 
in Isa. 35. 6: "The lame man shall leap 
as an hart/ 5 

"Come, ye disconsolate, where'er ye lan- 
guish, come" and listen to this tragic and 
triumphant story. It will do good to those 
who desire good and are of the upright 
in heart. From these pages you may feel 
the thrill of an intrepid faith and catch 
the contagion of unbounded cheer. Our 
wheel-chair philosopher will show you a 
stone that can transmute things to gold; 
on it is engraven, "All things work together 
for good to them that love God." 

He hands you in this sincere and artless 
little book a flask of real Eau de Vie, the 
true Water of Life. 

William Valentine Kelley. 

New York, 1913. 



CHAPTER I 

The Call to the Chair 

August 8, 1911. The call to occupy the 
wheel chair of philosophy came to me just 
one year ago to-day. Without any seeking 
for it on my part the summons came, very 
abruptly and unexpectedly. 'Twas on this 
wise : 

On Monday morning I walked across the 
fields still wet with dew, swinging my din- 
ner pail and whistling. I was happy. I 
had every reason to be happy that morn- 
ing. On the day before I had worshiped 
God with a friendly congregation in a 
quaint old country church. The afternoon 
of Sunday I had spent walking out in the 
sunshine with my father, looking up at the 
foothills of the Adirondacks which en- 
circled us and nosing around in an old 
graveyard, deciphering moss-covered in- 
scriptions on the stones. After a good 
night's sleep I had opened my eyes to a 



2 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

new week, with new work, and new zeal 
to be at it. I had a right to be happy that 
morning. I had a body every muscle and 
nerve of which was strong and responsive; 
a good digestion; a clear mind; and every 
moment was being soothed and rested by 
the loveliness and grandeur of the hills and 
skies. 

Then, too, I was happy because I was 
part of a great construction work. Though 
lost amid the din of concrete-mixers, the 
shouts of swarthy laborers, and the clang 
of the ironworkers, still I was a part of 
the busy, noisy scene. While very hidden 
and insignificant, my place was there 
somewhere, and I was actually helping to 
build the huge brick-and-iron buildings 
which were some day to be a new million- 
dollar State's prison. And at work that 
day I was happy because it was all so 
different from the quiet, studious life which 
had always been mine. From cloistered 
walls and university libraries it was a far 
cry to this wild jumble of noise and con- 
fusion. And, as a change, the absolute 



THE CALL TO THE CHAIR 3 

transformation of circumstances was most 
welcome. To a man who has for years 
handled nothing more rough than a base- 
ball or a tennis racket, the feel of a shovel 
or plank is refreshing. And so, that morn- 
ing, I took real delight in digging out 
pointed stakes instead of Greek roots; I 
enjoyed more wrestling with big wooden 
panels than I ever did wrestling with 
Hebrew radicals or irregular verbs. The 
sudden jump I had taken from gentle 
meditation to genuine manual labor had 
landed me in a beneficial and pleasant 
environment. Now, instead of developing 
gray matter, I was toughening muscle and 
contracting a glorious brown tan. Then, 
too, I was happy because I was working 
with my father. For six years I had been 
"acquiring an education" — living in a dif- 
ferent world from him, growing inevitably, 
though unwillingly, somewhat apart from 
him and his interests. Now I was in his 
world, working at his side, and learning to 
look at things from the viewpoint of the 
man who toils with his hand instead of his 



4 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

brain. Of course I could not be equal to 
him in this sphere; here, he was the expert, 
the master carpenter, and I but a bungling 
assistant. But still, we were together. 
Side by side we worked, enjoying a com- 
radeship that we had never known before. 

During the noon hour that Monday 
father and I sat together on a pile of 
lumber. All around us were iron girders, 
bricks, and bags of concrete. While the 
Italians devoured their hunks of black 
bread soaked in water, we emptied the 
two dinner pails which our generous land- 
lady had filled that morning. All ignorant 
how pertinent the subject was soon to be, 
we chatted with other workmen, who had 
turned that corner of the building into a 
restaurant, about the possibility of acci- 
dent, chances of reimbursement, and 
especially the hazardous work of the iron- 
workers, who were near us erecting the 
great steel partitions for the prison. 

Less than a month later one of those 
young ironworkers, who had just married 
and brought his bride to live with him in 



THE CALL TO THE CHAIR 5 

our boarding house, was carried past the 
door of my hospital room on a stretcher. 

The whistle blew the close of noon hour. 
The "mixer" began again its noisy turn- 
ing. The ripsaw whirled and buzzed. The 
shouts of the drivers, rousing the reluctant 
horses, rose and fell, and the resounding 
clang of iron and the pounding of car- 
penters' hammers began anew: the human 
hive was again the scene of industry. 
Father and I, with another carpenter, were 
sent to board up a shed where bags of 
cement were stored. At one end of the 
shed a derrick was busy hoisting and 
dumping great buckets of dirt from a 
manhole. For perhaps an hour we worked 
together — the two carpenters boarding up, 
or, more properly, "planking up," for the 
boards were planks two inches thick and 
fifteen feet long. We were about half 
through with building the wall when, to 
bring father the next plank, it was neces- 
sary for me to go under the derrick stand- 
ing near the end of the shed. Carefully I 
stood, holding the plank, until the great 



6 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

bucket was filled, the two horses had 
raised the beam with its load, and the 
men were ready to swing it and dump it 
at our side and far above our heads. Then, 
lugging my plank, I started, knowing there 
was plenty of time to reach the carpenters 
who were waiting for it- In all human 
reckoning there was time — just a step, a 
second — and any remote possibility of dan- 
ger was out of the question. As far as 
human sight and knowledge went the lia- 
bility of disaster was infinitesimal. 

But, after all, human sight and human 
knowledge go a very short way. Into the 
things before us we can see little further 
than our nose. In the last critical test 
our sight is blindness, our knowledge is 
ignorance. With human calculation put- 
ting the chances a million to one against 
disaster, I started on my journey of twenty 
feet, carrying the plank at my side. A step 
forward, firm and unhesitating — it was my 
last! Without a second's warning, the 
rope that supported the overhanging boom 
snapped, the great boom fell, dragged down 



THE CALL TO THE CHAIR 7 

by the heavy load of dirt and its own pon- 
derous weight, and I was crushed between 
it and the plank I still clung to. Utterly 
ignorant of what had happened, I was 
pressed, face down as in a vise, between 
the ground and the plank below and the 
boom above me. To probably not a score 
of living persons is it possible to convey 
any adequate impression of that sensation 
of being squeezed — almost — to death. With 
that derrick grinding down through my 
back I believe I felt the sensation that a 
grain of tiny corn must feel — if it has 
nerves — caught between the upper and 
nether millstone. Unconsciousness — that 
blessed relief from many of life's hardest 
pains — did not come. I heard men shout, 
though I didn't realize what it was all 
about; I saw my feet and legs wiggling in a 
sort of convulsive shudder, and I wondered 
why they did, when I didn't will them to. 
But worst of all was the terrible crushing 
sensation, as though the weight of the 
whole world were centered on the lower 
part of my back; the awful burden 'neath 



8 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

which it seemed as if I must be ground to 
powder, although it could have lasted only 
a few seconds, was the most terribly op- 
pressive sensation I hope I may ever have 
to suffer. Even now I shudder when, some- 
times in the night, memory of that hor- 
rible moment flashes over my mind, and, 
by a strong effort of the will, I strive to 
banish even the recollection of that crush- 
ing pain. 

I remember I uttered in the moment of 
my deepest pain, "O Father. " It was all 
that I said while in the clasp of death, but 
in it were wrapped up unutterable words 
of protest against the unfeeling, cruel thing 
that seemed to be crushing me without 
provocation — an appeal for him to remove 
that thing, which, as far as I could see, was 
a bolt of thunder from a clear sky, and 
which, instead of killing me, was just tor- 
turing me by bearing down remorselessly 
upon the small of my back. 

Whether that "O Father" was directed 
to my heavenly or earthly father I do not 
know. Both must have heard it. The 



THE CALL TO THE CHAIR 9 

miracle that kept the boom from crushing 
through my skull in the first place, and has 
preserved me alive after suffering a broken 
back, convinces me that my heavenly 
Father heard me. And the fact that my 
earthly father was the first one at my side, 
to haul me out when men raised the derrick 
a little, convinces me that my weak cry 
must have reached his ear too, almost be- 
fore it was uttered. With a pain at his 
heart which must have been sharper than 
mine my father helped put me on a 
stretcher, and men carried me to a tent 
where were a cot and some simple restora- 
tives. For the latter I had no desire. I 
had no feeling of sickness — no idea of 
fainting, and didn't see why I should 
swallow the glass of whisky several pressed 
upon me. The only thing that troubled 
me was that continued pressure on my 
back, and the fact that I couldn't move 
either leg a bit. I could see men slapping 
and rubbing and working my legs, but I 
couldn't feel them, nor help them move 
me at all. An Italian, who had been hit in 



10 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

the head with the iron bucket, lay at my 
side, groaning as though he were in the 
pangs of death, but I didn't feel like groan- 
ing, and was only a little sorry to have 
everyone making such a fuss over me. 

To me it seemed as if friends had sprung 
up out of the ground; willing hands and 
anxious faces were everywhere. Rough 
bosses and engineers, who had barely 
noticed me before, had stopped shouting 
and cursing and were doing everything in 
their power to make me comfortable. One 
big Irish boss was even so considerate, 
when I refused to drink the tumbler of 
whisky offered me, as to swallow it down 
at a gulp, saying something about it being 
"a shame to waste it." 

After an hour or so a doctor came in his 
automobile and looked me over: poked and 
pricked my extremities, and finally in- 
jected something into my arm to keep me 
up during the journey to a hospital, which, 
it appeared, I was to make. It was about 
time for a train to the city (some hundred 
miles away), so some men prepared to 



THE CALL TO THE CHAIR 11 

carry me to the station, a distance of half 
a mile. At first they tried a stretcher, but 
the least move shot such a pain through 
my back that they had to use another ex- 
pedient. Putting poles under the whole 
cot on which I lay, they lifted me very 
carefully and carried me thus, keeping 
step, and jarring as little as possible. The 
kindness of those rough men and some of 
the engineers I can never forget. On the 
way down to the station one of the office 
men ran out and gave me a drink, which, 
when I managed to get some into my 
mouth, lying straight out as I was, was 
very refreshing. At the station I was 
hoisted, cot and all, onto a baggage truck 
and began my first ride in a baggage car. 
Since then I have had considerable ex- 
perience riding in the side-door Pullman, 
but at that time it was a novel experience 
to be shoved into a baggage car with 
trunks and boxes. 

Then began a seventy-mile ride that is 
unforgettable. While I was not in a con- 
tinual pain, any jolt or twist that moved 



12 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

my back produced an excruciating pain 
where the spinal column was fractured; so 
I had to lie absolutely straight, unable even 
to raise my head, and momentarily dread- 
ing a jar which would shoot a dagger 
through my back. I was afraid to have 
the train start, afraid to have it stop. The 
setting of the brakes was a warning to me 
that agony was coming. And yet the 
journey was made without extreme dis- 
comfort. As usually proves true, the 
worst blows, severest pains, were those 
which never came. I don't know whether 
the engineer of that train saw the cot 
being pushed into the baggage car, and 
tried to be careful; whether some one 
instructed him, or whether he was just 
utterly unconscious of running smoothly, 
but it always seemed to me as though he 
started and stopped his train with as little 
bumping as possible — and I blessed him 
for it. The care and attempted gentleness 
of all the trainmen, the interest and solici- 
tude of the conductors as they came out 
to collect tickets — those things are bright 



THE CALL TO THE CHAIR 13 

spots in the memory of that dark ride to 
terrible uncertainty. 

I really felt more sorry for my poor, 
heart-broken father during that three hours 
than for myself. He sat beside me every 
instant, trying to support and comfort me, 
outwardly little perturbed, but weighed 
down, I knew, at heart, with the saddest 
grief and remorse that had ever come into 
his life. Here was the youngest of his 
three boys, just ready to begin the work 
of life — God's work — stricken down at his 
side, absolutely helpless, and suffering in- 
ternal injuries that probably meant death. 
The despair, the uncertainty of it all was 
keener suffering to him than any physical 
anguish that I knew. 

Night was just settling down over the 

city of T when we arrived at the 

station. No sooner had the train stopped 
than three men came into the car and 
joined father at the side of my cot. A 
doctor, an interne, and a representative of 
the Construction Company — each of them 
fine, and thoughtful of my comfort. 



14 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

Quickly I was transferred to the ambu- 
lance, the interne climbed in beside me, 
and we were off to the city hospital. Up, 
up, the horses dragged us. Though I 
could see nothing but the sides of the 
wagon, which looked like a hearse, I knew 
we were climbing a very steep hill — the 
angle was almost sharp enough to be 
climbing the side of a cliff. But just a 
few minutes, during which the kind in- 
terne had found out the colleges I had at- 
tended, and we were at the receiving door 
of the hospital where I was either to live 
or to die, with the chances mostly in 
favor of the "die"; but, as it appeared 
later, to live, and learn lessons of eternal 
importance. 

Thus it was that my "call" came to enter 
the Chair in the University of Affliction 
and Disappointment. Thus far, it is true, 
it seemed to my friends more like a bed in 
the halls of death. But the Lord, it ap- 
peared, had graduate work in the school 
of life for me yet to take, in preparation 
for the chair aforementioned. 



THE CALL TO THE CHAIR 15 

I am aware that it is not in accordance 
with the strict canons of art to stop in 
course of a story and "moralize." But 
this is not a "story" in the accepted lit- 
erary sense, but a recital of personal 
experiences, a history of the most vital 
facts in my life, and record of the thoughts 
inspired by those experiences. So, while it 
may offend some literary regulations, it 
will be a more faithful transcript of actual 
experience if I pause now and then to 
express the inner meaning of some out- 
ward events. The significance and deduc- 
tions I may draw are not gleaned from far 
and near reading or hearsay, but are off- 
spring of my own mind, born in travail and 
pain of the hardest experiences of my life. 
And these are properly interposed in the 
train of events nearest those happenings 
which gave them birth. 

It is as a man in old age returning to the 
village where he was born. The river that 
winds around and through the village is 
not a mere ordinary channel filled with 
commonplace water. That river is the 



16 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

place where he used to swim — there he 
dove in, here he waded before he dared to 
swim, along this bank he walked a thou- 
sand times and cast in hook and line. The 
house yonder on the hill is not an ordinary 
structure of wood. It is the "old home" 
about which cluster memories of mother, 
father, brothers now departed, too sacred to 
tell anyone outside that inner circle of 
loved ones. The school, the barn, that 
tree are not mere outward objects, but 
symbols of boyhood joys, liberty, fun, 
frolics, and dreams, which are entirely 
apart from the material nature of those 
things unconnected in the mind of a 
casual beholder, but inseparably related in 
the mind of the man whose boyhood days 
were spent along with them. So the events 
related herein are not set forth as a narra- 
tive, interesting or exciting in themselves. 
But the mere accidents, sufferings, and 
pleasures that happened to my body are 
teeming with deeper lessons — holy inspira- 
tions — which, in my memory of the events, 
are inseparable, and of greater importance. 



THE CALL TO THE CHAIR 17 

These lessons constitute the deductions and 
"philosophy" which bodily suffering has 
ground into heart and mind, and this 
experience has, I believe, qualified me to 
expound ex cathedra these lessons of pa- 
tience, trust, faith in prayer, and humility 
that have been so painfully yet clearly 
revealed to me. As through an opening 
rudely battered, but with kind intent, has 
the light streamed that has brought cheer 
and brightness in dark places, dispelled 
gloom, and banished doubt. 

11 Like as a Father Pitieth His Children " 

Even the fact that we are working with 
our Father is no guarantee against accident 
overtaking us and distress coming upon us. 
God does not insure his most devoted 
laborers immunity from disease or sorrow. 
While we are most ardent about our 
Father's business, immersed in the most 
unselfish labor for him, the blow may 
come; and sometimes it seems as if the very 
choicest of his fellow workmen were the 
most conspicuous marks for every storm of 



18 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

adversity; blow after blow is rained upon 
them till they seem crushed by the very 
God they are trying to glorify, like a David 
or a Job, a Robertson or a Matheson. So 
far from promising freedom from trouble, 
our Father even says that whom he loveth 
he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son 
whom he receiveth. 

But this he does promise: his pity and 
sustaining grace. "Though he fall, he shall 
not be utterly cast down." God never prom- 
ised the upright man no falls, but he did 
guarantee deliverance, freedom from com- 
plete dejection and overthrow. In the 
blow that we bring upon ourselves, the 
disaster which has seemed to shipwreck 
all our earthly hopes, we can remember 
that God watches us in pity and love, and 
his heart is grieved as sorely as our own. 
"Like as a father pitieth" — there is no 
pity as deep, as rich as the father 's. The 
love and pity of a mother is tender and 
long-suffering, but the love of a father 
goes 'way down into the roots of his being; 
it is beyond measure or expression. Until 



THE CALL TO THE CHAIR 19 

now I can see the care and anxiety written 
on my father's face as he watched beside 
me in the baggage car. No man will ever 
know the darkness of the woe in which he 
was plunged that fateful afternoon until he 
has heard a cry for help, rushed to a pros- 
trate figure pinned down under a fallen 
derrick, pulled it out, limp and quiet, to 
look on the face of his own child. That 
was the cup my father had to drink — 
enough to wrench the heartstrings of any 
man living; yet after such a shock he sat 
and watched me for hours, uttering not 
many words with his mouth, but speak- 
ing volumes in the pity written on his 
face. 

All through those days and nights when 
I hovered between life and death the true 
pity of no one was more certainly, gen- 
uinely, though quietly expressed than his. 
I saw now how the psalmist could find 
no higher type of the unfathomable pity 
of God for his suffering child than the 
pity of a father for his boy who lies in 
pain. 



20 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 
" Be Ye Therefore Ready " 

How very thin and tenuous is the line 
that separates us from death or despair! 
In the midst of life, joy, and confidence, 
we are in death, misery, and hopelessness. 
The carpenter whistles at his work. A 
crash, a blow, and he is crushed like an 
insect 'neath the heel of man. The athlete, 
with life and energy superabundant, leaps 
for the vaulting bar. A strain — a snap, 
and he is helpless, maybe, for life. The 
scholar, proud in his giant intellect, victor 
of worlds of hidden knowledge, puts the 
final tension upon his brain. Something 
snaps inside — and he is a pitiful, hopeless 
imbecile. The line that divides our 
strength from weakness, buoyancy from 
invalidism, life from death, has neither 
breadth nor thickness. Therefore let no 
one of us glory in our strength or our 
intellect. The breath of our boasting may 
be the last. But he that glorieth let him 
glory in God, his Maker and Preserver. 



CHAPTER II 

Lessons Learned in a City Hospital 

" Hospital Days " 

There was heard a few years ago a popu- 
lar song, the chorus of which, containing 
the words, "School days, school days," 
possessed a most irresistible swing. One 
day, as I lay in my room in the hospital, I 
tried to revise it to suit modern and local 
conditions, and sing it to my nurse 
in a more appropriate version of 
"Hospital days, hospital days." But 
neither singing nor versification seemed to 
go very well, though the audience did 
murmur something about "a howling suc- 
cess." But now, as I look back upon 
them, I realize that "hospital days" are 
"school days." The time spent in hos- 
pital was for me — and, I suspect, is for 
everybody — a period of liberal education, 
and the leading course on the curriculum 

is patience. Give a man time enough in 

21 



22 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

the course (some require longer than others) 
and the average hospital will turn him 
out with a well-earned "Pt.D./ 5 "Doctor of 
Patience/ 5 and he will thoroughly under- 
stand what I have laboriously worked out, 
without the aid of, if not without the ap- 
proval of, books, that the word is composed 
of one Latin word, Potior, "I suffer/' and 
one English word, "sense" — "I suffer with 
sense/ 5 or "sensibly." That is "patience." 
The hospital opened a strange and un- 
familiar world to me. I think that the 
average man, who has never had any more 
serious physical trouble than teething, will 
find a hospital, with its peculiar odor, its 
quiet, linoleum-covered halls, white beds 
and white-capped, gliding figures, a weird, 
awe-inspiring place. I know that, when I 
was carried in on a stretcher and put 
down on a little white cot in a private 
ward, it was all strangely different from 
anything I had ever seen. I had prayed, 
sincerely, for "the sufferers in our hos- 
pitals," but had never seen one; now I 
was one. Yet it was not an unpleasant 



LESSONS OF A HOSPITAL 23 

place to be either. Here were plenty of 
good friends, apparently, and an inviting, 
clean bed which seemed to have been made 
ready, as though I were expected. But to 
get over on to that bed cost sharp agony, 
for even in being lifted that few feet, and as 
carefully as attendants could do it, my 
back was pierced as with a knife. Once 
there on the bed, straight out and still, I 
wished that I might never have to be 
moved again. 

That first night in a hospital comes back 
to my mind like a horrible ghost out of the 
past. It was the worst, I believe, of all 
the nights I spent there — and hospital 
nights are infinitely worse than "hospital 
days." With a fractured backbone, a 
nervous system shocked throughout and 
utterly paralyzed in the lower half of my 
body, and with unknown internal compli- 
cations working dreadful ills, you may 
imagine that it was neither a quiet nor a 
peaceful night. Sleep did not come near 
me. Bells rang and whistles blew; some one 
in an adjoining room groaned every little 



M WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

while; I could still feel that hard boom 
pushing into my back until I thought I 
should die of the pressure. All that 

I wanted was water, and many times 
during that night, which seemed more 
like a century, a good lady in blue and 
white tried to satisfy my thirst. Since I 
could not raise my head a bit, getting a 
drink was awkward, but after many ex- 
pedients she finally got some water into 
my mouth by means of a long tube, in the 
side of which had been cut a hole, like that 
in a flute. 

II Sister Mary " 

I had not been long in this place of 
strange sights and sensations when I looked 
up and saw, at the foot of my bed, a new 
and a strange figure. There, quietly gazing 
at me, with a half-critical, half-pitying eye, 
stood a black-robed woman with a white 
starched linen hat and a chain of black 
beads around her neck. Being unused to 
the regalia and the quiet, dignified mien 
of a nun, I was somewhat disturbed, espe- 



LESSONS OF A HOSPITAL 25 

cially as she stood in stolid silence and 
calmly looked me over. At last she spoke 
a word or two and quietly passed on, not 
to my regret. I began then to realize that 
I was in a Catholic hospital, and this was 
a head nurse, a Sister of Charity. It was 
my first glimpse of "Sister Mary" of the 
order of Saint Joseph. Despite this in- 
auspicious introduction, she proved to be 
one of my firmest friends, a genuine sister 
of charity, who, under a somewhat digni- 
fied exterior, carried a kind and charitable 
heart. Among friends of any denomina- 
tion I have none who strove to do more 
deeds of kindness and good will than this 
same Sister Mary; in the religion of mercy 
and helpfulness, the simple religion of Him 
who went about doing good, I am proud to 
be a worshiper together with Sister Mary. 

Mother and Brother Come 

Along in the middle of that century — 
the first night — father brought in my 
brother and my mother. My darling 
mother stood off, her face covered with 



26 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

anguish, and looked at me as though it 
were all incomprehensible to her fond 
mother-mind that I should be there, broken 
and helpless. All my life long she had 
sheltered me from every pain and disap- 
pointment, but now, despite her lavished 
care and love, I lay before her in pain, ap- 
parently sinking slowly to death, and she 
was powerless to stop me. And my brother 
— how good and kind he looked as he stood 
with his arm around our mother! Only 
one other face (that of my betrothed) did I 
look upon with such delight as I did upon 
my mother and elder brother. It seemed 
to me they were so very kind, especially 
my brother, who I knew was busy, to come 
down there, thirty miles from home, in the 
middle of the night to see me. The visit of 
angels would have brought no such deep 
peace and repose in my heart as the pres- 
ence of those two dear ones. I began to 
comprehend why Jesus invites people to 
enter heaven for such works as that — 
"Sick and in prison, and ye visited me." 
It was over at last — that long, dark 



LESSONS OF A HOSPITAL 27 

night. The nurse who had given me the 
water went off duty and a new one came 
on. By the light of a new day I began to 
look around me. I was in a room with 
three other cots, one of them empty. 
Another room, similar, and with more 
people in it, opened off mine, and from 
there had come the groans during the 
night. A nurse, with a round, kind face, 
pretty blue eyes, and a smile like a ray of 
sunshine, came to wash my hands and 
face, and feed me my breakfast. Across 
the room I saw a man raising himself, with 
a little help, to eat his breakfast, and said, 
in envy, "I wish I could do that." "Wish 
you could, pard," he returned, with the 
brotherliness common to fellowship of suf- 
ferers in a hospital. But I had to lie per- 
fectly flat and eat after the manner of 
fledglings in the nest, eating what was put 
in my mouth by another. 

My Pastor a True " Shepherd " 

The morning after that memorable first 
night I had another visitor, whom I must 



28 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

mention as one of the cheeriest who came 
among all those who visited me during the 
days of hospital life. That was my pastor, 
a strong, stalwart young minister whom I 
had met at home a year before, and had 
come to admire as an ideal preacher and 
pastor for the times. But now, in the 
eventful days that set in, I came to do more 
than admire this preacher of strong build 
and attractive personality — I learned to 
love him as a brother man. If ever there 
was a true pastor, with all of the original 
Latin force of the "shepherd," he was one. 
Without a suspicion of the professionalism 
which mars the work of so many pastors, 
he came quickly to the help of one of his 
flock who was in trouble. Without senti- 
mentality or ceremony he proceeded to do 
things for the comfort and relief of that 
member whose life was imperiled, and his 
zeal did not run its course after a day or 
two, but week after week, month after 
month, he was persistent and untiring in 
his thoughtful ministrations. This man, 
my minister, did not always wear a white 



LESSONS OF A HOSPITAL 29 

tie or wrap himself in a clerical vest, but 
he did always wear a smile hopeful and 
sincere, and wrap himself in a mantle of 
kind words and acts which stamped him 
more as a follower of the humble Christ 
than ecclesiastical raiment alone would 
have done. Sometimes I did have to tell 
people that the handsome young fellow 
who had just gone out of my room, and 
left a pile of magazines or a bag of fruit, 
was a clergyman, but I never had to in- 
form anyone that he was a friend. This 
good brother and kindly shepherd of my 
soul and body did not always read the 
Scripture or offer prayer to Christ, but he 
acted the Christ and turned my thoughts 
Christward more than some who have 
prayed long and volubly for me. Thank 
God for the ministry of prayer. Thank 
God, again, for the ministry of kind deeds! 
I respect those pastors who can come and 
affectingly read the story of the good 
Samaritan at my bedside; I love the one 
who can come and act the good Samaritan 
when my body is bruised and aching. And 



30 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

if I should have to choose one or the other 
for my model minister, I think I should 
select the brother, not the cleric — the man 
who proves himself to be the neighbor, and 
not the one who descants eloquently on 
neighborliness, the pastor who showed that 
his concern did not end with my restored 
soul, but extended even to my restored 
body. As I think of this man, who trav- 
eled over fifty miles, day after day, just to 
say a few cheerful words or give me a 
strengthening handclasp (for there was 
often time for little more), and offered to 
get me anything from the last book pub- 
lished to the Statue of Liberty in New York 
harbor, who walked and ran time and again 
to lift me from bed to my chair, or back 
again, I somehow search for superlatives. 
But then I cease straining my vocabulary 
and just say of him, as some observer once 
recorded about the Good Shepherd, "He 
went about doing good. 55 

A Private Room; Surgeon Arrives 

Three days I lay straight and motionless, 



LESSONS OF A HOSPITAL 31 

except when nurse or orderly moved me, 
before the surgeon could be located up in 
the Adirondacks and hurry from his gun 
and the woods to the knife and operating 
room. I was transferred to a private room 
and given a special nurse. But I believe I 
would have gladly foregone any "private" 
or "special" privileges rather than undergo 
the pain of being lifted and moved. How- 
ever, I was not in a position to protest 
effectually, so when a fat, unkempt, but not 
unkind orderly stuck his face down close 
to mine and said, "Put your arm around 
my neck," I could do nothing but obey. 
A strong lift, a turn, another wrenching of 
my back, and I was on the carriage. Then, 
after a ride down the hall, another transfer, 
and another sharp dig in the back, I was 
laid on a high surgical bed, hardened by a 
board under the mattress, and there and 
then began life as "No. 7," by which 
definite but noncommittal term I was 
known for the remainder of ten weeks. 

The surgeon came at last, conferred with 
his assistant who had taken me in charge 



32 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

till his arrival, examined me, and went out. 
I lay in bed and wondered what would be 
the next thing on the schedule of events. 
The doctors were speculating outside the 
door on the slim chances of my living, 
possibilities of a successful operation, and 
assuring my friends that there was a 
chance in a thousand of my getting through 
all right. But such serious thoughts were far 
from my simple mind. I had no idea of 
dying, certainly not without a bigger fight 
than I had yet put up. Instead of prepar- 
ing to enter heaven, I, like a simpleton, was 
planning to enter the university again and 
complete my theological course in the fall. 
This was to be my last year, and my best. 
I didn't want to miss a day or a friend, 
and it was only a little over a month until 
matriculation day. As I look back on those 
fond imaginings I am undecided whether to 
bless or curse the physicians and nurses 
who let me go on cherishing such utterly 
impossible dreams; never giving me the 
slightest intimation that I was coming into 
the shadow of the valley of death. Prob- 



LESSONS OF A HOSPITAL 33 

ably they did well, however, and perhaps, 
on the theory that "where ignorance is 
bliss, 'tis folly to be wise," I was happier 
and better in my blind ignorance. 

The surgeon came in from his consulta- 
tion and said, in an offhand way, as though 
he were suggesting fried chicken for lunch: 
"As you are one of the interested parties, 
I thought I'd tell you what we decided. 
We'll send you down this afternoon to have 
an X-ray picture taken of your spinal 
column, just to confirm my diagnosis; 
then, in the morning, we'll make an ex- 
ploratory incision in your back." That 
didn't sound half as bad as some hazing 
ordeals that had been set before me as a 
scared freshman, so I responded, cheer- 
fully: "All right, Doctor. Very glad you 
told me. I've been wondering now several 
days what you were going to do with me." 

Accordingly, in the afternoon, I sat, or, 
rather, "lay," for an X-ray picture. The 
being "taken" was easy enough; easier, in 
fact, than having an ordinary photograph 
taken, for it was not necessary to look 



34 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

pleasant. The painful part of the per- 
formance was being lifted from bed to 
carriage, carriage to X-ray table, and the 
reverse, until I was back in bed. 

En Route to Oblivion 

Then came the morning when the "ex- 
ploratory incision" was to be made. De- 
spite the surgeon's confident air, I did not 
just fancy the idea of exploring expeditions 
in my backbone, where the hair's breadth 
wavering of the surgeon's lancet would 
mean a severed cord and instant death. 
Perhaps I may be pardoned for feeling a 
bit nervous as I lay waiting for word 
which meant it was time for me to be 
loaded once more onto the carriage, and 
taken to the operating room. After what 
seemed an interminable length of time the 
order came; a few handclasps and reassur- 
ing words from my friends and I was being 
wheeled down the hall to — life or death, 
no man knew which. I can never forget 
the expression on my good brother's face 
as it disappeared over the horizon of the 



LESSONS OF A HOSriTAL 35 

edge of my carriage — the mingled despair 
and cheerfulness, as he tried to convince 
me of what he hardly believed himself, 
that I was going to life and health. 

While he pushed me to the etherizing 
room, the kindly attendant coached me on 
the proper method of taking ether; the 
elevator man bade me "Godspeed/ 5 and we 
were there, in the room which was the 
antechamber to the halls of oblivion, if 
not death. To feel that in a few minutes 
you are going to be devoid of all feeling 
and consciousness is in itself a weird sensa- 
tion. To realize further, that while you 
are thus dead to feeling a knife will be 
probing about in the nerves and muscles 
of your body, cutting flesh, breaking and 
removing bone, touching and scraping the 
spinal cord, the most important single 
nerve in the body, gives one an emotion 
that is almost uncanny. In the room were 
a doctor, who was to administer the 
anaesthetic, a sweet-faced Sister of Charity, 
and my beloved pastor. The last thing I 
remember is his kind, strong features look- 



36 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

ing down upon me while I breathed in that 
mysterious gas which was inducing the 
deep sleep of unconsciousness. So far 
from disliking or struggling against the 
anaesthetic, I rather enjoyed it. To me it 
had not an unpleasant odor, and its effect 
was really exhilarating. Instead of sinking 
into unconsciousness, it seemed as though 
I was being borne aloft to a higher ethereal 
realm of true existence. I could almost 
comprehend the sensation of those mystics 
who have been exalted on the wings of in- 
tense religious fervor, or the psalmist tak- 
ing the "wings of the morning/' to behold 
heavenly glories utterly inconceivable in 
the mundane sphere. As I was going up, 
up, up, with a delightful rapidity and light- 
ness, like a disembodied spirit, I sang to 
myself the Hallelujah Chorus from the 
Messiah, which I had not sung, or thought 
of, as far as I know, since two years pre- 
viously, when I sang in the college choir at 
commencement. Somewhere in that mys- 
terious realms of the sub- or supraliminal 
consciousness that strain of sacred music, 



LESSONS OF A HOSPITAL 37 

one of the most exalted the mind or heart 
of man ever composed, had been lingering. 
And no more appropriate theme could have 
been imagined for that supreme moment of 
exaltation, as my spirit soared to the very 
gates of heaven, than that great chorus of 
Handel's masterpiece: 

For the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth, 
Hallelujah ! Hallelujah ! 

With that noble strain ringing in my head, 
darkness, quiet, painlessness settled down 
upon me. 

Whence Doth It Come ? and Whither Go ? 

Many a time since that day I have won- 
dered where "I" was during that two 
hours succeeding. What became of the ego, 
that individualizing spirit that gave unity 
to all my life and states of consciousness 
from birth till that day? Where does the 
"soul" or "spirit" go in such moments of 
unconsciousness (or in sleep, for that mat- 
ter)? Can it die? Can it be dissolved in 
ether, and re-collected with the return of 



38 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

sensation and expulsion of ether from the 
body? Can it be that it returns to the 
God who gave it? Where is the self when 
the body is numb and the mind blank? 
I cannot believe that the ego is to be iden- 
tified with either of these, and comes and 
goes as thought or sensation does. But if 
not, where is it — what is it? Together with 
birth and death, the question of the soul, 
its nature and abiding place, must remain 
one of the inscrutable mysteries of life. 
Perhaps it is to be classed with those 
questions which puzzled the "teacher in 
Israel" when He who was "come from 
God" told him of the second birth, and the 
Spirit which was like the wind. "Thou 
hearest the sound thereof, but canst not 
tell whence it cometh, and whither it 
goeth." 

Back on Earth in " No. 7 " 

When I came to earth again, three hours 
later, I was back in No. 7. It was very 
still there, and half-dark. A nurse was 
fanning me, and every now and then a 



LESSONS OF A HOSPITAL 39 

doctor entered and felt my pulse. Of the 
delirious babbling I had uttered, wise and 
otherwise, the nurse only knows; she would 
never tell me what I talked about. About 
the first thing that I recall saying was 
sensible, or nonsensical, according to the 
point of view. As I opened my eyes, and 
saw a nurse of striking beauty sitting at 
my bedside, and remembered vaguely other 
nurses who had been beautiful, in face and 
deeds, to me, I said, "Do you have to pass 
an examination in good looks to get into 
this hospital ?" I have forgotten her reply, 
but since she was a woman I believe that 
she was not displeased; and I, all uncon- 
sciously, had made a diplomatic entry into 
that particular realm where nurses reign 
supreme over helpless and (sometimes) ad- 
miring patients. 

Internes and Others Nonplussed 

The fight for my life was not over with 
the operation. Internal complications set 
in which, though I did not know it at the 
time, threatened death not very far dis- 



40 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

tant. According to human observations 
and conclusions, I could not possibly escape 
the fatal outcome of those serious compli- 
cations attending paralysis of vital organs. 
In fact, the medical students in the hos- 
pital used to spend much time demonstrat- 
ing to my pastor how every law of 
physiological cause and effect demanded 
that I die. Then why, in the name of 
Newton, Kepler, Osier, and all the scien- 
tists and physicians, didn't I die? Why 
am I alive to-day, an apparent defiance 
and contradiction to every medical rule 
and precedent which those students had 
learned? Were the scientific postulates and 
laws wrong? the students and doctors mis- 
taken in diagnosis and conclusion? No; 
the laws and observers of the laws were 
true and accurate as any human knowl- 
edge is. But I reverently believe that God, 
who is the giver and revoker of laws, and 
so greater than laws, preserved me from 
death. He did it, not by breaking or con- 
tradicting any law, but by employing some 
higher law, not yet manifest to human 



LESSONS OF A HOSPITAL 41 

understanding. Laws are but dead things, 
lifeless formulas of the method of God's 
working. And is it impossible that God 
should proceed in some new way, a manner 
not yet caught and catalogued by human 
observers? That is all there is to any 
miracle — the employment of some method 
or process which is as yet unfamiliar to 
men, something new, novel, and, maybe, 
contradictory for finite mind, but neither 
new nor contradictory to the omniscient, 
resourceful God. People have sometimes 
called my recovery "a miracle/ 5 Perhaps 
it is. And I am willing to "stand for" a 
miracle as long as it is understood that a 
miracle is not something contradictory to 
law, or inconsistent with and contrary to 
reason or highest nature. I cannot believe 
that at any time, nor for any purpose, 
whether driving back the waters from the 
ocean bottom, in giving his people victory 
in arms, in feeding a hungry saint or heal- 
ing a sick soul or body, God is inconsistent 
with himself, or any of his modes of pro- 
ceeding. God must be forever the same. 



42 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

The inconsistency, the impossibility, and 
contradiction at which the man of science 
holds up protesting hands in horror and 
skepticism are but distortions of our own 
feeble, error-bound minds. To the limited 
knowledge of our grandfathers it would 
have been absolutely inconceivable, a flat 
contradiction of all law, that a ton or so of 
iron, wood, and cloth should skim through 
the air like a bird; but the aviator to-day 
knows that his machine flies, not in the face 
of God's laws, but in harmony with and 
dependence upon them. Thus when we 
approach nearer the mind of God, and 
begin to know as we are known, we may 
begin to realize that swimming iron, bushes 
that burn without being consumed, and 
opening eyes, are no more "miraculous" 
than sinking iron, fire that consumes, and 
the eye that remains blind. 

The only reason I didn't die, if I may 
venture my explanation of the unexpected 
event, is the same as the reason that the 
son of the widow of Nain didn't die, or 
Dorcas didn't die, or Lazarus didn't remain 



LESSONS OF A HOSPITAL 43 

in the tomb until this day: the good Lord 
heard the prayer of a believing, trustful 
heart, found the request in Jesus's name, 
and in accord with his holy will, and 
granted the petition. I much prefer to 
stand as an illustration of God's readiness 
to hear prayer than as an example of a 
scientific "miracle/' I am alive because 
the "fervent, effectual prayer of a righteous 
man [and woman] availeth much/' I 
know that a heartbroken father and a holy 
mother prayed in all the anguish of their 
soul that I might be spared. 

A Mother's Prayers 

Then not to doctors, though they were 
skillful, and not to nurses, though they were 
faithful, do I ascribe my preservation from 
death, when every indication seemed to 
make recovery impossible, but to the power 
of prayer. Because many prayed, and 
some did not "doubt in their heart, but 
believed that what they said cometh to 
pass," God heard and answered the prayers. 
Preeminent both in praying and believing 



44 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

was my mother. Always accustomed to 
spend much of the day and night on her 
knees, this great crisis added new depth 
and intensity to her prayer and fresh power 
to her faith. She never doubted that it 
would all come out well in God's way and 
time. On the night just before the opera- 
tion, I remember, she stood at the window 
outside my room, and as she turned to go, 
said: "The sun has burst through a great 
black cloud. It is a sign for us that our 
cloud is to be crowned with glory, and that 
all will be well." One day before I had 
ever attempted to stand up, and could with 
difficulty move one leg at all, she said, as 
we talked about praying for improvement 
at least, "I never prayed that you should 
be made able to walk; I prayed, and still 
do, that you may be able to run, and I 
expect to see you running before many 
years." Such faith as that, all along the 
way, when all signs were discouraging, re- 
minds one of Jesus's exclamation over a 
woman who came and expected him to an- 
swer a certain petition, "O woman, great is 



LESSONS OF A HOSPITAL 45 

thy faith." When it comes to deep, unfail- 
ing, effectual faith, that believes "where we 
cannot prove," we men must yield first 
place to our wives and mothers. A man 
must have some foothold in the way of 
reason or proof; a woman needs only God 
for her great need. Not only to God, but 
to a man whom she loves, will a woman 
pin her faith, though he be sunk so low 
that everyone under heaven has lost con- 
fidence in him. A woman's faith in his 
purity or honesty has reclaimed many a 
sinner who has sunk almost past hope. 
That unshakable faith of woman in God 
and man inspired Kipling's eloquent tribute 
to mothers: 

If I were drowned in the deepest sea; 

Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine; 
I know whose tears would come down to me; 

Mother o' mine, mother o' mine. 

If I were hanged on the highest hill, 
Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine; 

I know whose love would come up to me still; 
Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine. 



46 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

If I were damned both body and soul, 
Mother o' mine, mother o' mine; 

I know whose prayers would make all whole; 
Mother o' mine, mother o' mine. 

Let me echo, with all the conviction of a 
reclaimed body and soul, that I know 
whose prayers have made me whole — my 
mother's. 

A Loyal Sweetheart 

There is one other love which is fit to 
stand beside the love of my mother, that is, 
the faithful love of a blue-eyed girl who had 
promised only three months before my ac- 
cident that she would some day share my 
humble parsonage and my fortunes, "f or bet- 
ter or for worse." I am not speaking with 
lover's license or with rose-colored hyper- 
bole when I say that this girl was the most 
beautiful I have ever seen. Possessed of a 
striking beauty such as artists rave over, 
and an artless charm of manner such as 
marks only the pure in heart, she would 
have graced any palace. Why one who 
could have had brilliant conquests in the 



LESSONS OF A HOSPITAL 47 

realm of hearts had sweetly yielded to the 
love of a poor theological student and con- 
sented to become the mistress of a parson- 
age is one of Cupid's mysteries. The de- 
lightful mystery of her love I have ceased 
to pry into and simply accept as one of 
those clear gifts which God sometimes be- 
stows on undeserving men. But in the few 
months that we have lived and labored to- 
gether I have found that a deep, consuming 
desire to minister to others and a genuine 
joy in making others happy constituted the 
leading motive which prompted her to ac- 
cept that title opprobrious to anyone with 
a taint of pride or selfishness in their char- 
acter, "the minister's wife." But that she 
was inspired by love of a minister, as well 
as love of ministering, was abundantly 
shown by the faithfulness of my betrothed 
during that bitter experience which be- 
gan with the fall of the derrick upon my 
back. 

Though she was many miles away at the 
time of the accident, she started as soon as 
she heard that I was asking for her, and by 



48 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

traveling all night reached my side only two 
days after I was brought to the hospital. 
The atmosphere of No. 7 brightened as with 
a sunrise when she turned into the door of 
my room. Her heart was aching with sym- 
pathy and her mind distracted with dread- 
ful uncertainty, but her face was cheerful 
and her manner calm. I never saw her 
weep. She saved her tears for the loneli- 
ness of her room and made her visits to 
mine a tonic better than medicine. In the 
hour of crisis, when death seemed imminent, 
her love came to me like the strong, calm 
assurance of heaven; when lifelong inval- 
idism confronted the boy whom she had 
consented to marry at a time that he had a 
body and mind equal to a man's work, her 
love never faltered; true as God, calm, 
sweet, patient, and inspiring, her affection 
knew no variableness or shadow of turning. 
My mind turns instinctively toward that 
love which is "broader than the measure of 
man's mind" when I think of her devotion 
and faith in me at an hour when any feel- 
ing touched with human selfishness would 



LESSONS OF A HOSPITAL 49 

have lost hold, despairing. Loving steadily 
in the face of death, believing implicitly 
with scanty grounds of hope, proudly walk- 
ing by my wheel chair, accompanying me 
on my awkward expeditions on canes, 
happy over every little improvement, sym- 
pathetic at every setback, sharing every 
vicissitude of my fortunes as her own, she 
is forever enshrined in my heart as the liv- 
ing embodiment of that which Shakespeare 
celebrated in his sonnet on love: 

Love is not love 
Which alters when it alteration finds, 
Or bends with the remover to remove : 
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark 
That looks on tempests and is never shaken; 
It is the star to every wandering bark, 
Whose worth's unknown although his height be 

taken. 
Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and 

cheeks 
Within his bended sickle's compass come; 
Love alters not with his brief hours and 

weeks, 
But bears it out even to the edge of doom. 
If this be error and upon me proved, 
I never writ, nor no man ever loved. 



50 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

I would not essay to recount, day by 
day, the ten weeks of hospital life. First, 
because this is not a diary; second, be- 
cause the days were so similar that the 
account could be written by ditto marks 
after the first day — and ditto marks are 
not interesting reading. There are, ordi- 
narily, only two events by which the 
hospital patient's day is divided, and from 
which moments are reckoned. These events 
are not the "getting up" and "going to 
bed" of ordinary existence, but the arrival 
of the "day nurse" (7 a. m.) and the 
"night nurse" (7 P. M.). Many times the 
change of nurse and the gas light is the 
only variation between day and night for 
the sleepless form on the cot. Pain and dif- 
ficulty of getting prompt medical attention 
at night really made the night more dread- 
ful and less restful than day for me. The 
lines in Longfellow's "The Day Is Done," 

And the night shall be filled with music, 
And the cares that infest the day, 

Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs, 
And as silently steal away, 



LESSONS OF A HOSPITAL 51 

used to seem like bitter irony when I lay 
in bed all night, the only "music" being 
the groans of those in pain, and the crying 
of children that was borne up from the 
children's ward. 

Of course when natural sleep is impos- 
sible it must be induced by use of the 
hypodermic injection; sleep, to "knit up 
the raveled sleave of care/ 5 must be se- 
cured at all hazards; and so, every night, 
my arm was punctured by a needle and 
some opiate was sent coursing through my 
blood. Then quietly, slowly, a feeling of 
drowsiness would creep upon me, like a 
great, delightful tide, rising higher and 
higher, until the languor of a restless 
sleep finally came — all too often to be 
broken by pains too severe to be deadened 
by the medicine. But in those fifty or 
more nights of induced stupor I began to 
appreciate the insidious delight which holds 
the opium and morphine fiend in grip of a 
deadly habit. By the end of those "hos- 
pital nights" there was not a spot on 
either arm which had not been pierced 



52 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

with the "hypo" needle; and I had learned 
to appreciate the healing power and the 
ineffable joy of genuine, deep sleep. 

It was during these days as "No. 7" that 
I cultivated acquaintance with, and ad- 
miration for, a class of people whom I had 
never come in contact with before. I mean 
the American nurse, both trained and in 
training. For the most part, during the 
two years of invalidism, I was attended by 
the nurses in blue and white, or "in train- 
ing." And during those months, when 
they have been for me hands and feet, I 
have come to respect, and almost revere 
them. As a whole, I know of no more 
gentle, courteous, and conscientious class of 
young women than those who can be found 
wearing the white caps in hospitals, sani- 
tariums, and asylums of this country. 
Cheerful under conditions that would tax 
the patience of a saint, faithful in her 
work even when unappreciated, kind, 
though no thanks (and sometimes only im- 
precations) be given her, the average nurse 
stands as a living monument to the sweet- 



LESSONS OF A HOSPITAL 53 

souled Florence Nightingale, and strongly 
reminding one of the spirit of Him who 
came "not to be ministered unto, but to 
minister/' If there were any poetic gift 
within me, I should find noble subject for 
my verses, not among the laureled heroes 
of war or the forum, but among the quiet, 
sympathetic women who are saving thou- 
sands of lives every year by untiring and 
often unpleasant work, loyal through hard- 
ship and adversity to the high ideals which 
they have set before themselves. And if I 
were a Carnegie, determined to die poor by 
making others rich, I should found an en- 
dowment to pension those sweet "sisters of 
the tender touch" who have given the 
strength of their lives to make others 
strong, and are, after less than twelve 
years of unselfish labor, generally either 
worn out entirely or "shelved" as being 
unfit for their very exacting work of love. 
It is true that very often the nurse, with her 
sympathetic and independent spirit prop- 
erly blended, has won the affection of some 
man, often a patient, who is anxious to 



54 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

provide for all her future desires and make 
her independent of pension funds, and she 
retires with a MRS. degree. But for those 
who, for any reason, do not change from 
station of nurse to wife, there should be 
some practical way of expressing human- 
ity's great debt, and relieving them from 
all worry and anxiety in declining years. 

Where a " Sower " May " Go Forth to Sow" with Ex- 
pectation 

What a vast opportunity for either good 
or bad lies in the grasp of those who min- 
ister to the sick, only those realize who 
have lain helpless and watched the sun 
come out with the nurse's smile, or the 
darkness envelop the room with her frown. 
If it is true that there is no time when a 
man is so irritable and disagreeable as 
when he is sick in bed, it is also true that 
there is no time when one is so impression- 
able and open to influences of kindness or 
harshness. It is when a man is unable to 
go and get a drink of water that he appre- 
ciates the Christliness of her who gives it 



LESSONS OF A HOSPITAL 55 

to him, and understands why Christ said it 
was done unto him. I have lain in the in- 
fluence of sweet relief from pain and racked 
my mind for some practical way of express- 
ing my gratitude, some way within my 
means, of showing how thankful I was to a 
hospital attendant who was only doing his 
routine duty in answering my bell, and 
attending to my wants. One of those 
"orderlies" whom I recall was rough in ap- 
pearance and only ordinarily prompt and 
willing to help me, and yet I have heard his 
footstep outside my door with more de- 
light than I would have found in the rustle 
of angels' wings. And the sight of his 
homely face, with a good-natured smile, has 
brought me more seraphic bliss than a 
glimpse of heaven opened. Why? Because 
I was in that condition when any kindness 
made a never-to-be-forgotten effect, and 
stirred up gratitude entirely incommensu- 
rate with the favor done. Then, on the 
other hand, some of the hardest thoughts 
that I have ever harbored against anybody 
I have felt toward those physicians and 



56 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

attendants who seemed rough and unfeeling 
when they were asked to do something to 
relieve the pain which I suffered. 

Because I have felt these varying moods 
possess my whole soul, as the disposition 
and manner of nurses and attendants 
changed, and have seen other sufferers ex- 
perience the same attraction and repulsion, 
I say that the nurse holds a tremendous re- 
sponsibility for making the thoughts of 
patients good or bad, holy or hateful. And 
who could forecast the harvest that springs 
from little seeds of mercy, sympathy, and 
gentleness intrusted to the fallow soil of an 
afflicted heart? There are rich harvests in 
store for anyone who ministers to the 
sick, tactfully and faithfully, which the 
minister or evangelist could never hope to 
reap. 

The Sisters of Charity 

One morning as I opened my eyes, half- 
dazed, there fell upon my ears the dull 
monotone of many voices rising and falling 
in rhythm, almost like chanting. Yet it 



LESSONS OF A HOSPITAL 57 

was not music, but a repetition of words, 
sentences, now hushed for a moment, as 
though one quiet voice were reading alone, 
now raised again in chorus of many voices. 
As I was just coming out of a restless sleep, 
the strange sounds produced a queer sensa- 
tion, half-lulling, half-alarming. Who — 
what, could it be thus early? Before the 
sun was up, here, apparently, was a large 
number of people saying together some 
words which to me were indistinguishable, 
yet which seemed to mean a great deal to 
those who spoke them. 

When the rest of the world woke up, and 
I was thoroughly wakened myself, I in- 
quired about the noise that I had heard or 
dreamed of hearing. The nurse assured me 
that I had not dreamed it, that the sounds 
had come from the Sisters at prayer. 

As I have mentioned, I had been brought, 
without knowing anything of it, to a Cath- 
olic hospital, managed by Sisters of Char- 
ity. Every detail of superintendence, from 
provision of food and medicine to training 
of nurses, was in charge of well-educated 



58 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

Sisters. Their piety and efficiency made a 
great impression upon me, and especially 
do I take off my Protestant hat to their 
deep reverence and regularity at prayer. 
Every morning, long before night nurses 
thought of going off duty, these devout 
women were gathered in the chapel (next 
to my room) upon their knees in prayer 
and meditation. Then, at frequent inter- 
vals during the day, they met and went 
through their unique order of service; and 
late at night their peaceful voices lulled me 
to sleep. It seemed to me that they, as 
nearly as any people I ever knew, kept 
literally the Master's injunction, "Pray 
without ceasing. " 

What though they did wear a garb 
strange to our Protestant eyes? So did 
Wesley. What though they bowed be- 
fore the crucifix by the light of candles? 
Their minds and eyes, fixed on the Cruci- 
fied One, were not distracted by the 
thoughts of clothes and society which 
absorb so large a share of our women's 
thoughts during Protestant service. Their 



LESSONS OF A HOSPITAL 59 

hearts were in as truly worshipful state, 
and humbly devout, as any body of Protes- 
tant churchgoers, and in frequency and 
regularity of devotions the Sisters far ex- 
celled any "reformed" congregation. With- 
out justifying any of the mistakes of 
Catholic theology (which, in sincere belief 
of many of them, cannot be called sin) I 
have always felt like bowing in respect and 
unworthiness before the strong sense of 
religious duty which kept the Sisters, and 
many earnest Catholics, so continually in 
the attitude and spirit of prayer. The 
difficulty attendant upon getting a hand- 
ful of church members to unite in a service 
of prayer one hour a week, at a convenient 
hour, in a comfortable church, may be 
responsible for some of my admiration for 
those who, day after day, summer and 
winter, were gathered together, without 
break in their ranks, for prayer and reli- 
gious meditation. I was made happy too 
one day when "Sister Mary" told me 
that I had been included in their peti- 
tions. 



60 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 
Hopes of Elevation to a Chair 

One day the doctor said, "We'll have to 
see about setting him up in a chair." If 
he had proposed my occupying the royal 
throne of Great Britain he would have 
made me no more happy or eager with 
anticipation. I thereupon had visions of 
being lifted gracefully into a comfortable 
rocker and sitting there by the window in 
luxurious ease for hours at a time. But no 
chair was forthcoming. No one even 
seemed to be making preparations for the 
great event. Great event, indeed, it would 
be for me, after lying flat six weeks, with 
weights tied onto my legs as though I 
would fly upward if not held down to this 
mundane sphere. Great event indeed, 
after having been fed by a nurse without 
ever catching a glimpse of what was in the 
dishes on the tray at the bedside till the 
food dangled from a fork just above my 
mouth; to sit up, and then look down on 
the tray and see what was coming without 
being told, or waiting to "taste and see." 
Just to see the floor would be quite an 



LESSONS OF A HOSPITAL 61 

event. My bed was so high that all of 
the lower part of the room was an unex- 
plored country to me; and who could tell, 
when I was able to get a bird's-eye view of 
things, what mysteries might be explained 
and what revelations burst forth! Then, 
too, if I could get into a chair by yonder 
window, I might discover what was below 
that board walk on the hill which I could 
see from my bed. Perhaps I could then 
look down upon the pavements on which, 
every little while, the horses clattered as 
they brought in the ambulance with "one 
more unfortunate." 

But all these glorious possibilities did 
not appear to stir anyone to get the chair 
and put me in it. Inexcusable delay, it 
seemed to me; cruel withholding of pleasure 
from one who did not demand much to be 
satisfied. Day after day slipped by, and 
my horizon was still the top of the tray, 
bureau, and the board walk on the hill out- 
side. When at last I demanded a reason 
for thus "keeping a good man down/' the 
doctor said they would have to go at it 



62 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

gradually, setting me up in bed first, then 
elevating me more and more until I could 
stand it — or sit it — in a chair. That it 
took some strength and suppleness of 
joints to sit up was a consideration that I 
had overlooked in my dreaming, but which 
I discovered promptly on the nurse's first 
attempt to raise me to a sitting posture. 
The first little inclination upward shot a 
pain through my rusted thigh joints which 
dimmed my visions of backyards or bird's- 
eye views. I was only too happy to sink 
back into the horizontal position. But now 
nurses and "orderlies" seemed unduly anx- 
ious to get me to sitting erect and into a 
chair. With fiendish persistence each day 
they would insist on raising me a little, 
a little more, and leaving me for a longer 
period each time in the inclined position, 
to enjoy my new views. But, aching in 
every joint that had to bend, I had no 
pleasure in new points of view. The thing 
that most occupied my attention was get- 
ting back to a comfortable plane, and 
dwelling on the impossibility of ever bend- 



LESSONS OF A HOSPITAL 63 

ing enough to sit in a chair. As the dor- 
mant muscles were strained into life, and 
the stiffened joints moaned in response to 
their tug, I lost all desire to advance from 
Plane into Solid Geometry. 

To make things easier (!), and facilitate 
my sitting in a chair, the nurse began 
bending my knees a little each day. For a 
month they had had the luxury of absolute 
idleness, and naturally objected strenuously 
to being disturbed and compelled to un- 
bend from their stolid dignity. Though she 
began carefully, the unaccustomed motion 
made the joints creak and groan like a 
rusty hinge (figuratively), and made me 
cry out in desperate protest (literally). Un- 
heeding, merciless, she kept on bending 
those joints every day. Pleading, argu- 
ment, threats, everything was unavailing to 
stop her procedure. "Doctor's orders" was 
the only satisfaction I could get when I had 
finished my case and eloquently summed 
up the strong points contra id faciendum. 
Although I had previously ascribed to my 
nurse a fair degree of sympathy and intel- 



64 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

ligence, I questioned her having a heart or 
brain at all during those processes of torture 
when she stood at the foot of my bed bend- 
ing my knee joints, often smiling at my 
discomfiture in fiendish (it appeared) glee. 
I used to reach out my arms, about the only 
things I could move, for inkwell, paper 
weights, or anything that might be on my 
tray, but the tormentor had prudently re- 
moved out of my reach everything that 
might be employed as a weapon. Working 
thus gingerly, it was weeks before I could 
sit up straight in bed, and longer still be- 
fore I could be lifted to a wheel chair. 

But the great day finally came, when I 
was swung by two attendants to the chair 
and pushed out by my nurse into the hall. 
Notwithstanding there were some discom- 
forts, it was an exhilarating experience. 
Just to get outside the door of "No. 7," 
and look up and down the hall; just to be 
rolled to a window and see houses, trees, 
chimneys, and, 'way off, people hurrying to 
and fro — why, it was like being "born 
again" in a true and delightful physical 



LESSONS OF A HOSPITAL 65 

sense. I felt somewhat like the man who 
had just had his eyes opened, I think, and 
"saw men as trees walking" — a little dazed 
by it all, but happy. I knew the exalta- 
tion a butterfly feels, if it feels at all, when 
it bursts out of its old dingy cocoon into the 
sunlight of heaven. O how bright the 
world was that day ! How the sun glistened 
on the houses, and how green the grass and 
beautiful the trees! Heaven cannot appear 
much more radiant to the soul which has 
reached its beautiful home than the earth 
did to me when I first looked upon it from 
a wheel chair. What if I couldn't move 
either leg, or sit up more than an hour 
without pain? I was alive, the world with 
its beauty lay before me, friends were near, 
and God was good. 

Notes of Such Experience in David 

Some such joy and light must surge 
through the soul which has been bruised 
and sick, and then been raised by God into 
newness of life. The writings of the 
psalmist, who had tasted many deep sor- 



66 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

rows and drunk the cup of bitter woe, 
respond more than any human writings to 
the feelings of a man who has felt his feet 
slipping, and has thrown out his hands to 
have them clasped in the warm hand of the 
Strong Deliverer. The book of Psalms be- 
comes a new book, almost a book of per- 
sonal memoirs and feelings he would like 
to have written if he could, to the man 
who has been in the depths of moral or 
physical despair. One can hardly burst 
forth in hymns of praise like David until 
he has known the "pains of hell gat hold 
upon him/' and "found trouble and sor- 
row." Then, and not till then, can he 
sing triumphantly and sincerely, "Return 
unto thy rest, O my soul; for the Lord 
hath dealt bountifully with thee. For thou 
hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes 
from tears, and my feet from falling." On 
the day that I was first able to sit in a 
chair, after the "cords of death" had so 
completely "compassed me," that psalm 
one hundred and sixteen seemed written 
for me, and every specification adapted to 



LESSONS OP A HOSPITAL 67 

my case. Though I was still some way 
from being able to "walk before the Lord 
in the land of the living/' I knew God, who 
had raised me as far as a chair, would also 
complete the work and let me "walk" too 
in the land of the living. As for what I 
should "render unto the Lord for all his 
benefits toward me/ 5 I had, and still have, 
no surer determination than to "take the 
cup of salvation and call upon the Lord, 
and pay my vows unto the Lord, yea, in the 
presence of all his people." 

" Raised with Christ " Means New Joy and Vision Too 

And interpreted in the spiritual realm, 
there is such an irrepressible burst of en- 
thusiasm which comes to the man who 
has heard Jesus say, "Thy sins be forgiven 
thee . . .; arise, and take up thy bed, and 
walk. 55 A similar newness of life, a strange 
inflowing of new power, a broadening of 
his horizon, and a transformation of com- 
mon objects and people, follow that 
experience of being "raised together with 
him." A man's eyes are really "holden" 



68 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

until the touch of Christ has been laid 
upon them. He sees meanness in people, 
cheapness in things, monotony in duty, 
and vanity in all things until the Lord has 
raised him up (perhaps at expense of great 
pain and agony to him) to where the glow 
of heaven can be seen. Then "earth's 
crammed with heaven and every common 
bush aflame with God." 

And the only way God can open some 
blind eyes, and raise up some atrophied 
spirits, is by the severest discipline. He 
has to cut away the scales which blind us 
(no painless operation, often), or he has to 
shape and bend us painfully, that we may 
finally reach the posture in which we can 
see and adore him. Many a time, after I 
was able to be wheeled to the window 
fronting the city, I have looked with envy 
upon the throngs of men and women hurry- 
ing back and forth in the streets below, 
jostling one another as they walked or ran. 
How many of that great crowd, I won- 
dered, ever thanked God for two legs to 
walk on? How many ever gave a mo- 



LESSONS OF A HOSPITAL 69 

ment's thought to the intricate system of 
muscle and nerve which, in the wonderful 
providence of God, works so smoothly as to 
let them go along, erect and easy, upon 
their limbs? Hardly an individual. And 
if he does occasionally entertain a grateful 
thought, it is probable that he has had a 
twinge of rheumatism, or a cut, or sprain 
to remind him that the mechanism of 
walking is not absolutely pain- or accident- 
proof. Not until he has lost the free use of 
some part of his body, "been afflicted/' as 
we say, does the man think of God who 
gave it to him, and keeps it running 
smoothly. Had the psalmist never gotten 
lost himself, or felt hunger and thirst of 
body, he might never have voiced such 
beautiful gratitude as he did in the Shep- 
herd Psalm, which all the world has learned 
to say after him: "The Lord is my shep- 
herd; I shall not want. He maketh me to 
lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me 
beside the still waters/' 



CHAPTER III 

Lessons Learned in a Sanitarium 

After some five months of living half 
the time in bed, half in a wheel chair, I was 
able to sit, with tolerable comfort, on a 
pneumatic cushion for five hours at a 
stretch, though even then the last fifteen 
minutes were generally spent wriggling like 
a small boy who has just been spanked, or 
wishing that I could sit on my shoulder 
blades or my head for a little while. Then, 
although I had never attempted standing, 
I was considered well enough to go to a 
sanitarium. A sanitarium differs from a 
hospital in this respect: you go to a sani- 
tarium when you contemplate getting bet- 
ter; you go to a hospital when you con- 
template getting worse. 

Concerning Sanitaria 

Two classes of people patronize the sani- 
taria of this country: those who have been 
living at too fast a pace and had to slow 

70 



LESSONS OF A SANITARIUM 71 

down, and those who have been living at 
a very slow rate and are determined to 
quicken the pace. A sanitarium is some- 
times known and used as a hospital, 
sometimes as a watering place, sometimes 
as a summer or winter resort, and some- 
times as an old ladies' home. As I have 
taken frightened glimpses into the lux- 
urious parlors of the one at which I stayed, 
I have regarded the last name as one most 
appropriate. Women, when I first ar- 
rived, were scattered everywhere — sofas, 
chairs, piano, all were covered with them: 
some with sewing, some with knitting, 
some with raffia baskets, but all with 
tongues. After hurried glances at these 
chattering groups I always, during the 
first few weeks of my stay, longed for a 
sixty -horse-power motor on the rear of my 
chair to drive me to a place of safety 
without respect for speed laws. Later on, 
it is true, I became more accustomed to 
the sights and sounds and dared to ap- 
proach quite near the feminine groups for 
three or four minutes at a time. 



72 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

The place whither I went was a sani- 
tarium, not a sanitorium. There is a dif- 
ference of more than one letter. There is a 
difference of about twenty dollars a week 
on the side of the "Orium." If one has a 
little ailment and much money, he becomes 
a "guest" at some sanitorium. If he has 
much ailment and a little money, he be- 
comes a patient in a sanitarium. Still, at 
my sanitarium there were quite a number 
wealthy enough to be "guests/ 5 some of us 
poor enough to be "patients," and a few 
appeared to be badly enough off to be called 
"inmates." It was a fairly cosmopolitan 
group, take us all in all, that used the 
"House" stationery. Among the three hun- 
dred registered guests there was repre- 
sented almost every class of people : some of 
the "upper crust" — society folk who had 
been compelled to lessen the pace after a 
winter whirl of social functions; merchants, 
wearied in their ceaseless pursuit of the 
almighty, elusive dollar; authors and ar- 
tists, fagged in brain after their last great 
contribution to the world's intellect or 



LESSONS OF A SANITARIUM 73 

aesthetics; old ladies, rich and wrinkled, 
with nothing to do but be waited on; poor 
old preachers (one or two poor but not 
old) and missionaries, broken down with 
the nervous strain of years of preaching 
and ministering to others. These and 
many other types were there — men of 
distinction and men of extinction; men 
whose names are in newspapers and his- 
tories, and some whose names are in the 
Lamb's Book of Life. Probably, in this 
sanitarium there were fewer who figure in 
Who's Who in America than those who 
might be found in "Who's Who in the King- 
dom of Heaven/' since the "House" made 
a specialty of and discount to three deserv- 
ing classes of people. It was one of the 
blessed institutions founded in this Chris- 
tian land not designed primarily to make 
money. Not that it was not run on a 
business basis, or that it labeled its minis- 
tration to deserving people as "charity." 
But its prime object was not to fatten the 
purses of some stockholders, but, rather, to 
benefit suffering men and women, letting 



74 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

them pay enough to keep the service up to 
a first-class standard. In pursuance of this 
policy generous discounts were given to 
three classes of people, who are generally 
admitted to be the worst paid and hardest 
worked (humanly speaking) of all educated 
workers, namely, missionaries, ministers, 
and public school teachers. Here, in quiet, 
clean atmosphere, and by well-adapted 
treatments, the missionary on his well- 
earned furlough could recuperate the 
drained reservoirs of physical strength and 
spiritual vitality. Here the preacher, worn 
out in brain and nerve, trying to meet the 
unnumbered demands of church and so- 
ciety, could revitalize his body, his soul, 
and his message; could refresh his mind and 
through communion with the Eternal Source 
equip himself anew for his task. Here the 
school teacher, weak and nervous from the 
strain of instruction and discipline, could 
relax, rebuild, and then return to her [boys 
and girls with new enthusiasm and deter- 
mination to mold right characters and minds 
as far as lay in her power. 



LESSONS OF A SANITARIUM 75 

11 Chair-man's " Life Increases in Pace 

It was here at the sanitarium, with such 
various companions, that life in the wheel 
chair took on new interest and speed. In 
the little world of our own I acquired quite 
a reputation as manipulator of a wheel 
chair. Arms and shoulders being strong 
and unimpaired, I could propel myself in 
the chair by means of the wheels very 
easily. On the level I could make faster 
progress than most people by walking, or 
even running. In floors, park, and eleva- 
tors my chair acquired a reputation for 
speed and accuracy. It was labeled the 
"Lightning Express/ 5 "Black Diamond," 
and such expressive names. Often people, 
watching me dart around, twist and turn 
in it, would take me aside privately and 
express anxiety about my going so fast. 
The plea was usually on the ground of my 
safety, but I half-suspected that my well- 
wishers were really more afraid of being 
run down by me than they were worried 
about my danger. So, though I occupied 
the "chair," I fear I was not recognized as a 



76 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

professor, and I had too much fun in it to 
be regarded as even a serious thinker. But, 
though I disregarded speed laws and had a 
happy time, I did see many things and 
folks by the way, which have been the 
basis for these reflections, given me a little 
different standpoint (or sit-point) for com- 
menting on affairs generally, and make 
these words literally opinions ex cathedra. 

Why God Takes "No Delight " in the Legs of a Man 

During the months that my legs hung 
like useless appendages over the edge of my 
chair new meaning has flashed upon the 
exclamation of the psalmist, "He taketh 
not pleasure in the legs of a man" (Psa. 
147. 10). Did the psalmist mean that 
man's legs are an exception to God's judg- 
ment pronounced upon creation when he 
said it was all "very good"? No. It sim- 
ply means that the Lord, with his truer 
wisdom, finds his delight in those things 
that endure, and are really of permanent 
and spiritual value. The character, the mo- 
tives, the heart — those things which are 



LESSONS OF A SANITARIUM 77 

unseen but eternal — are the things which 
God notices and rejoices in. He looks with 
the same approval upon a man with one 
leg, one and a half legs, or no legs. Those 
things are mere incidentals in his estimating 
the worth of a human being. The psalmist 
hastens on to tell us, "The Lord taketh 
pleasure in them that fear him, in those 
that hope in his mercy.' 5 

It may be, then, to correct our mistaken 
scale of judgment that he takes away an 
arm, a leg, or an eye. While he takes no 
pleasure in the legs of a man, too often 
the man does. Not only so, but the man 
gets the opinion that they are essential to 
his happiness, and indispensable to his 
work in the world. He comes to think that 
without them, and the hurry and bustle 
they enable him to make, he could not 
efficiently serve either God or man. Even 
when engaged in God's work, he has be- 
come accustomed to use arms, legs, and 
mouth frantically to further God's king- 
dom, forgetting that the kingdom of 
heaven comes not by running to and fro, 



78 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

nor by saying, "Lo, here; lo, there!" but 
that in quietness and returning his strength 
shall be. And when he is deprived of the 
physical power to run continually to assist 
the Lord in ushering in his kingdom he 
finds that there is, after all, more progress 
made by waiting on God in prayer and 
humble submission than in the most stren- 
uous and well-meant human striving. And 
then he discovers, as a matter of fact, 
that God can and does choose the weak 
things of this world to confound the things 
that are mighty, and that a man without 
legs can run upon the Lord's errands if his 
heart is quietly waiting and willing to be 
used. Of more men than Noah has it been 
true that "the Lord shut him in" before he 
began to realize the omnipotence of God 
and understand the plan by which spiritual 
forces operate. David was so homely and 
unpromising a youth that his kinsfolk 
scorned him as a candidate for king, but 
God wanted him to rule. Moses was the 
man who couldn't talk, but by yielding his 
will to God's, Moses delivered and left 



LESSONS OF A SANITARIUM 79 

some of the most eloquent passages in the 
Scriptures, known to Bible students to-day 
as the "addresses of Moses/' Is this lesson 
clear, then, that God withholds talent or 
strength (humanly judged), or takes away 
what he has given (as he depleted Gideon's 
band), in order that man may find that in 
Jehovah alone is his strength? 

Latent Sympathy in Human Hearts 

One of the most delightful revelations 
that life in a wheel chair has brought me 
is the amount of latent and unsuspected 
kindness that lurks in the average human 
breast. The man on the street has hidden 
in him fifty per cent more of sympathy and 
kindness than he gets credit for, but he 
has it covered with a coat of reserve and 
stoicism which needs to be melted. And 
the sun which will melt that icy coat of 
seeming indifference and sternness is the 
sight of some one more unfortunate than he 
is. Time and again have I been delight- 
fully surprised at the tenderness revealed 
in hearts that I supposed were utter 



80 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

strangers to the softer emotions. Rough 
men on the street, whom I had never seen 
before, would stop to inquire about my 
trouble, or offer a word of cheer. I shall 
never forget one laborer who saw me, and 
said with awkward sincerity, "I wish you 
was as strong as I am." Another sought to 
establish some common ground of sym- 
pathy by saying, "I have a brother who is 
a cripple. 5 ' One of the sweetest and most 
unexpected assurances that I received dur- 
ing my hospital life was the promise of an 
"orderly/ 5 ill-mannered and of coarse ex- 
terior, who was, one would think, hopelessly 
hardened to such scenes of distress. This 
man gave me unbounded cheer by saying, 
the night before I was going on the oper- 
ating table, "I'll put up a little prayer for 

you." 

These incidents I could match with 
others from almost every day of my life 
on wheels and in bed — incidents which be- 
tray in the most unpromising characters a 
soft heart and tender feeling for one in 
deep affliction. It is a wholesome tonic for 



LESSONS OF A SANITARIUM 81 

one who is inclined to take a pessimistic 
view of human nature to behold how one 
touch of hardship makes brothers of us all, 
and how often gruff manners conceal a 
warm heart. Did not the unconquerable 
optimism and leadership of Christ rest in 
just this ability to see in everyone the one 
spot of tenderness — this clear jewel hidden 
in the ore — appeal to it, develop it, until 
the whole nature was transformed and 
made pure and good? 

"Hest in the Lord" 

One of the humiliating things about 
wheel-chair life is the absolute dependence 
on others which it forces upon one. It 
makes one keenly appreciate the old-age 
embarrassments which Jesus foretold for 
Peter, "When thou shalt be old, thou 
shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another 
shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou 
wouldest not." It took some time for me 
to resign myself to being lifted, turned, and 
borne this way and that, not at my voli- 
tion, but by the strength and will of 



82 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

another. For months there was a lurking 
fear of being dropped when anyone would 
pick me up to put me in the chair. So 
distrustful and fearful was I that, rather 
than let one in whom I had no confidence 
lift me, I would lie all day where I was. 
Gradually I learned, however, that my 
fears were imaginary. He who lifted me 
was always strong enough, and really more 
concerned about doing it right than I was. 
My fear and apprehension only made it all 
the more hard and dangerous a process. 
Yielding passively made the lifting process 
easier and safer. Then, too, in going on a 
journey, I used to consume hours worrying 
about how I was going to get on and off the 
car, fretting over a thousand and one things 
that had to be accomplished. But, in- 
variably, when I came to the time and 
place which I had dreaded, the difficulty 
was vanished, "the stone was rolled away." 
Ready and willing hands were always found 
to help over the rough places, the chair was 
always in place, every incident had been 
foreseen and provided for by thoughtful 



LESSONS OF A SANITARIUM 83 

friends, and would have been without my 
worry. In short, the worst troubles I had 
were those which never happened. 

In wheel-chair experiences absolute sub- 
mission and reliance on another smooths 
away the difficulty and makes life twice as 
enjoyable. But the same rule will apply 
as forcibly in any sort of life. On legs too 
Hill Difficulty is always made level by 
confidence; fretting always makes it steeper. 
The psalmist had been in some hard places 
himself when he wrote the words which this 
age needs more than any people that ever 
lived: "Commit thy way unto the Lord; 
. . . and he shall bring it to pass." "Rest 
in the Lord, and wait patiently for him." 

Classes of " Chair-men " 

While sitting and rolling in my wheel 
chair at the sanitarium, sometimes alone, 
sometimes with other "chair-men," I for- 
mulated the principle that everyone who 
rides in a wheel chair is not unable to walk. 
I have distinguished at least four different 
kinds of wheel-chair people, as they are 



84 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

found at sanitaria and watering places. 
First, there are those who take to the 
chair for the same reason that a woman 
takes to uncomfortable skirts and high- 
heeled shoes — it is fashionable and provides 
a conspicuous way of spending money. 
These people are so far slaves of Dame 
Fashion that when staying in places where 
many of the "first" people lie about in 
chairs, they straightway secure one for 
themselves, and engage a jaunty nurse or 
attendant to wheel it. They thus proclaim 
the fact that they are "in style" and have 
the money to do the proper thing in a thor- 
ough manner. Then there is another class 
of people who are sitting in the wheel chair 
from sheer laziness. Whether it be a 
disease attributable to hookworm, hered- 
itary or acquired, laziness impels some to 
recline upon the soft pillows of a wheel 
chair simply because they do not care to 
make the exertion to walk. It is easier to 
be pushed than to stand up and walk, so 
they are pushed. Another group of people 
will be found in wheel chairs because they 



LESSONS OF A SANITARIUM 85 

desire to, or have been ordered to, rest. 
They are saving their strength, conserving 
their energy, lest later they have to join 
those who ride in wheel chairs because they 
are helpless. These people are wise be- 
cause, while there is yet time, they protect 
themselves against utter breakdown, as the 
prudent ship captain lays in a large stock 
of food and water while he is in a port 
where they are obtainable. Again, you will 
find a last class of people who are in chairs, 
not because they are lame, or helpless in 
limbs, but because they are mentally crip- 
pled and weak. Their legs are not broken, 
but their resolution is; they think they can- 
not walk, and so perforce they must ride. 
They may be perfectly sincere in believing 
themselves helpless, and for all practical 
purposes they are as helpless as though their 
legs were clean cut off. In fact, the person 
who is lame in his mind, as a matter of im- 
agination, is a little more pitiable than the 
one who is lame in body as a matter of fact. 
No disease is so deplorable or so hard to 
cure as a disease of the mind. 



86 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

" The Law of Compensation " 

Another lesson that has been brought 
home during these months of chair-riding is 
what is known in technical language as the 
"law of compensation." This does not 
mean, as Pat explained to Mike, "Thet if 
wan leg is longer than the ither, the ither 
is shoarter than that wan/ 5 It does mean, 
simply, God's gracious provision for balanc- 
ing or evening up things. While my legs 
were hanging limp and lifeless over the edge 
of a wheel chair, getting daily thinner, my 
arms and shoulders were growing stronger 
through the unaccustomed labor of pro- 
pelling the chair by its wheels. By no 
system of exercise, in health, would I have 
developed such strong shoulders and arms. 
Which fact is a testimony to the kind jus- 
tice of God. If he takes from us in one 
thing, he makes it up in another. The 
blind man lives in a world of sounds which 
we who see know nothing about; his fingers 
explore regions and learn things that we 
never dream of. Many who are deprived 
of hands have an agility with toes which is 



LESSONS OF A SANITARIUM 87 

marvelous. When the Lord roots out in 
one place he plants in another. If a forest 
rots and is buried underground, lo, he has 
transformed it into coal so precious that 
men tunnel the earth for it. And so, 
though it may not be instantly apparent, 
those whom the Lord has touched with in- 
firmity he has also touched with blessing 
in some other respect. "God is faithful, 
who will not suffer you to be tempted 
above that ye are able; but will with the 
temptation also make a way to escape, 
that ye may be able to bear it." 

Steep Places and Their Lesson 

On floors and level sidewalks I used to 
sail along in my chair very nicely, supply- 
ing my own motor power. But just as I 
began to feel proudly independent the 
wheel would strike an incline, and I would 
look anxiously about for a "pusher." 'Tis 
so in the ride through life. On the level, 
smooth place we think we can get along 
very nicely with any god. With our bodies 
strong, minds keen, and the weather fair, 



88 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

we make mock at those who crave the 
protection and good will of a superhuman 
Being. Only yesterday a young man of 
clear mind and bright promise assured me 
confidentially that he was going to get on 
without God, Bible, or church. Very well, 
in the vigor of youth, the clear skies of 
inexperience, confident one! But when the 
blasts of life hit you, and the billows roar, 
you will look about for a wiser Captain, a 
Pilot who knows the waters, to take the 
helm of your life. "De profundis" you may 
be compelled to cry to God. The life, more 
especially the death, of boastful infidels like 
Tom Paine, for example, is proof positive 
that it is impossible to get through and 
beyond this life with its change and decay 
without being forced to our knees to cry 
unto Him who is a "very present help in 
time of trouble," and who, alone, has "the 
keys of death and Hades." 

When There is Peril in Numbers 

It is safer to have one person push a 
wheel chair than two. Sometimes I have 



LESSONS OF A SANITARIUM 89 

been actually embarrassed (not to say en- 
dangered) by the number and willingness 
of my friends to "push." Two or more of 
them would seize the back of my chair and 
start down the street to give me a "pleasant 
little ride." Then the way that I went was 
neither narrow nor straight. With two 
sets of arms, directed by two independent 
minds, furnishing my power, I was now on 
the verge of going off one side of the walk, 
then threatened by a telegraph pole on the 
other. The cooperative motor company at 
the back spent most of their time disputing 
as to who was to blame for the gyrations. 
Meanwhile I knew that neither was at 
fault, but that the combination was the 
cause of my deviations. Inwardly I wished 
one or the other would be the headlight, or 
the "smell," instead of both trying to be 
the driving-rod. 

Similar disaster overtakes one when he 
surrenders himself in life to two different 
propelling forces. The attempt to have 
more than one aim, one ideal, one master 
always means a crooked and disastrous 



90 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

way. An ox and a Shetland pony do not 
pull together harmoniously; one would 
make better progress walking than driving 
such a team. God and Satan cannot work 
together in the arrangements of any man. 
The one who gives himself up to Jesus 
cannot allow pride, earthly honor, or self- 
ishness to have any directing or controlling 
part in his life. 

True, it is often more sociable to have 
several friends pushing your chair, but it 
is not safer. It is more sociable to "talk to 
the motorman," but it endangers life. 
Better sacrifice a little sociability of that 
kind. If we could mingle God and mam- 
mon, purity and pleasure, self-denial and 
greed, we think our life would be more en- 
joyable along the way. Perhaps; but there 
would come, sooner or later, an unexpected 
turn, a jolt, and an upsetting to our pleas- 
urable arrangements. 

It begins to appear why the Lord said 
"therefore 55 after "Ye cannot serve God 
and mammon. Therefore I say unto you, 
Take no thought for your life," etc. The 



LESSONS OF A SANITARIUM 91 

logical connection is, if we have one re- 
liable Master, he will guard and guide us 
safely; we need not fret; but if we are 
trying to vacillate between two, now yield- 
ing to one, now to another, we may well 
look out for ourselves, for between both 
disaster will surely overtake us. 

The Hardest Work in the World 

From many months of enforced idleness 
I am convinced that the hardest thing in 
the world to do is to do nothing. The 
labors of Hercules are play compared with 
endless loafing. When we are tiring our- 
selves out in the daily grind of work, we 
often long for the chance to just sit back 
and do nothing forever. But, be sure, a 
man soon wearies of idleness, and comes to 
the conclusion that uninterrupted resting is 
the most irksome job. He is very soon 
ready to exchange idling like a drone for 
working like a dog. How many times, as I 
have lain on soft pillows of bed or chair, 
watching men come home from the shops, 
grimy with dirt, weary with toil, have I 



92 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

coveted the joy of working to exhaustion! 
O, the luxury of being tired! After lying 
for about two months unable to make an 
exertion, a man knows no physical joy 
equal to that of exhaustion which comes 
from honest toil. 

Therefore I have come to distrust those 
descriptions of heaven which make it a 
place of continuous, absolute, and eternal 
rest. Why, I believe that heaven itself 
would become a bore if there were nothing 
for the saints to do — no work of any sort 
to occupy their minds and hands. Deliver 
me from a heaven which is nothing but 
"flowery beds of ease/' The experiences 
of life, the talents and training of time will 
certainly find fit employ in eternity. It 
may be only running (or flying) on errands 
for the King, polishing up the precious 
stones in the city wall, or, maybe, tending 
one of the twelve gates; but, however lowly, 
I hope there will be some place where I can 
work until I am tired, and can lie down to 
sweet, well-earned rest, under the skies of 
the New Jerusalem. 



LESSONS OF A SANITARIUM 93 

Where " Orders is Orders M 

One thing which impresses every patient 
in a hospital, or "guest" in a sanitarium, 
is the undeviating obedience with which a 
doctor's orders are carried out. The law of 
the Medes and Persians is an antiquated 
blue law compared to the order of a doctor 
once written down on the "order book" in 
the nurse's office. For days I never saw 
the doctor at all; when I did it was for a 
brief ten minutes in the morning; but I got 
the effect of the doctor, through his im- 
perial mandates, every day from morning 
till night. He was really the original cause 
of about everything that happened to me, 
though he never saw it done, nor ever 
seemed to be much disturbed about its 
being done. It used to suggest to me a 
man winding up his watch in the morning, 
and then going about, turning his attention 
to a thousand other things, confident that 
the innumerable little springs, screws, and 
wheels would, with the initial impulse which 
he gave them, work on harmoniously and 
quietly, and so accurately that whenever he 



94 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

wanted to know the hour, a glance at the 
face of his faithful mechanism would tell him. 
Almost so responsive and reliable was the 
operation of attendants when the hand of 
a wise physician had given the right start. 

Of course, in order that all things and 
people, from the head nurse to the scrub- 
woman, should work together like clock- 
work to a beneficial end, the fundamental 
law among medical workers is obedience. 
The first lesson, and the last, that a nurse 
has to master is obedience — slavish, literal, 
invariable obedience; and to me it has 
sometimes seemed wooden-headed, auto- 
matic obedience, without any more intel- 
ligence than a cogwheel possesses when it 
obeys the law of resistance. Such stupid 
servility and dogged adherence to the 
order of some unseen doctor used to disgust 
me thoroughly, especially when the obe- 
dience meant treatment which disturbed 
my temporary comfort. 

For example: I tossed in pain all one 
night simply because my nurse obeyed 
what she firmly believed was a doctor's 



LESSONS OF A SANITARIUM 95 

order. I had been given a hypodermic in- 
jection every night till I could get no rest 
without a drug thus administered. But the 
doctor had intimated to somebody that I 
could get on without one; that had been 
interpreted as an order; to my special 
nurse it came as an order, and so, the 
getting of a "hypo" that night was an 
impossibility. All night I begged and 
pleaded for an opiate. But no. Orders 
were to the contrary; I was to sleep with- 
out one or stay awake. For me the only 
alternative was to stay awake. Wakeful- 
ness meant suffering. My sympathetic 
nurse sought out the Sister in charge. She 
had recourse to pills and powders. Every- 
thing was done that could be thought of to 
induce sleep except breaking that order. 
Everyone knew that wakefulness was harm- 
ful, that sleep, even induced, was necessary. 
Common sense dictated but one course, 
but since orders were to the contrary, 
common sense was disregarded, and I 
slept not a wink. So I lay with unpleas- 
ant feelings in body and mind, vindictively 



96 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

revising certain well-known lines in this 
wise: 

Theirs not to reason why, 
Theirs but to do and die, 
Stupid old nurses! 

And I did not mean it to be complimentary, 
for to me just then it seemed as if it were 
"theirs but to do" and mine "but to die." 
The noble obedience was theirs, but the 
risk was mine. 

You may imagine that my peace of 
mind was not restored when we found out 
in the morning that the doctor had not 
meant to cut off my "hypo," and that the 
heroic obedience had been to a fancied 
rather than a real order. I had another 
choice line or two about "some one had 
blundered" then, but I knew that the 
nurse felt as badly as I did, and had really 
tried to emulate the "noble six hundred" 
in her unquestioning, absolute obedience. 

Even if some one had blundered, it was a 
splendid example of the respect, almost awe, 
with which a doctor's order is regarded. 



LESSONS OF A SANITARIUM 97 

And it is proper, for half the doses that 
a nurse must give are not agreeable ; and if 
she regarded the argument and protests of 
unwilling patients, who often cannot look 
further than temporary comfort, she would 
omit most of her treatments. From per- 
sonal recollection, and with mortification, I 
solemnly declare that the average sick and 
sore person is as peevish and unreasoning 
as a six-months-old infant; and without 
great tact, some force in overcoming pa- 
tients' objections, nurse and doctor could 
never restore health and strength. 

Isn't it a fairly good representation of 
the way of a man with his God? We put 
our sick souls in the hands of the Great 
Physician with the express purpose of being 
made whole. But if the Lord's modus 
operandi doesn't strike us favorably we 
revolt. Unless he can heal us without 
pain, discomfort, or lowering our self- 
esteem we sometimes prefer to keep our 
soul sick and unhealthy. What a good 
many people want is something in religion 
corresponding to painless dentistry. They 



98 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

want "sins removed without pain, remorse, 
or repentance." And the church which will 
put up such a guarantee on its signboard 
will have as many gullible applicants for 
admission as do painless dentistry parlors 
— with results just about as unsatisfactory. 
No, there is no easy street that leads to 
justification and heaven. There is a street 
called Straight; and we have to go it blind, 
betimes. The way of the cross is stained 
with blood, and strewn with thorns, not 
roses. No man nor system can offer to 
absolve sin and remove the burden of 
guilt without more or less pain, incon- 
venience, and real, discomforting repentance. 
It is a quack system as surely as is any 
method which pretends to remove a leg or 
arm without the slightest inconvenience to 
the patient. The amputation of a sin, 
which has become a part of a man, must 
necessarily be attended by loss of a certain 
amount of corrupt flesh and impure blood. 
The "old man" will not be expelled except 
after a fight. God does not demand phys- 
ical penance to atone for sin, but he does 



LESSONS OF A SANITARIUM 99 

demand spiritual penance such as is in- 
volved in real confession. A genuine, ac- 
ceptable confession is very apt to cause us 
a disagreeable lowering of our self-esteem, 
and exposure of some dark, unsavory past 
errors that we did not care to have dragged 
out into the light of day. Thus in the 
process of getting well spiritually we shall 
have to submit to many things that inter- 
rupt our temporary comfort and equani- 
mity. Shall we rebel, like a foolish patient? 
Shall we continue to carry the fatal disease 
rather than drive it out with an unpleasant 
potion? Shall we preserve the poisoned 
member, that it may spread slow death 
throughout our whole body, or "cut it off 
and cast it from us"? 

What Regulates Our Life? 

Then, too, that implicit, painstaking obe- 
dience which the nurses exercised will abide 
long in my memory as an example of what 
our attitude ought to be toward the will of 
God. The first thing that a nurse does, I 
have noticed, when she begins a day's or a 



100 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

night's work, is to read the orders which 
have been put on the "book"; and the last 
thing before going off duty is to read them 
again, to make sure that every one has been 
carried out to the letter. She may not un- 
derstand the purpose of many of them; 
may not know the ingredients of many 
doses she administers; sometimes the orders 
run counter to her own judgment; but in 
no case would she disobey or alter an 
order. 

How much happier and more effective 
our lives would be if such obedience to 
God marked our day's work, if we should 
stop at the beginning of a day, or at the 
undertaking of every task, and make sure 
what the "orders" from above relative to 
that thing were, and guide our actions in 
accordance therewith! How much more 
like Christ we would be if our only concern 
about a given line of conduct was, not what 
fun, wealth, or honor we were going to 
secure, but what the will of God in that 
regard was. Sometimes that will may ap- 
pear unnecessary, even cruel or arbitrary, 



LESSONS OF A SANITARIUM 101 

or strangely contradictory to common sense. 
But we display the mark of the Son of God 
when we do not rebel or question about in- 
comprehensible orders, but say, even with 
the shadow of Calvary ahead, "Thy will, 
not mine, be done," and cheerfully set 
about the execution of that order. And by 
this continued obedience to the will of God 
all through life's activities we earn the 
recognition of Jesus as spiritually his 
"mother, and brother, and sister." 

Of course God's orders are hard to obey 
sometimes. What wise and brave general 
issues only agreeable commands? One 
night during the war of the rebellion the 
officers of Grant's staff gathered in council 
to protest against any further advance at 
once. The men were worn out, supplies 
were getting low, and to them it was 
arrant madness to advance. The silent 
general heard all their arguments to the 
finish, their pleas for the worn-out soldiers, 
and then, when they had finished, having 
conclusively showed the impossibility of 
marching to attack, Grant brought the 



102 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

matter to a close by the brief command: 
"We will march to-morrow at daylight. 
The enemy are tired out too." And is he a 
soldier who refuses to obey an order from 
his superior because it is difficult to exe- 
cute? Nay; he who disobeys from diffi- 
culty, or because he does not understand 
the purpose, or deem it expedient, is no 
soldier, but a rebel and a coward. 

The Negro preacher caught the true spirit 
of obedience when he said: "If Ah finds 
a command in dis book whar God says fo' 
me to jump through a stone wall, Ah's 
gwine to jump at it. Jumpin' at it is mah 
part; goin' through belongs to God." God's 
followers often received commands to do 
the "impossible," or what entailed suffering. 
Ezekiel was told to make a valley of dry 
bones get up and walk. Moses was in- 
structed to divide the waters of the Red 
Sea; and a paralyzed man was ordered to 
pick up his bed and walk! And in the 
spirit of obedience which started to do 
those things, seemingly impossible, the 
miracle was wrought. And if His com- 



LESSONS OF A SANITARIUM 103 

mand leads us into the fiery furnace, or 
against an overtowering giant, we may be 
sure that the flames shall not burn, nor the 
giant prevail against us. 

The Thing Called Happiness 

Did it ever occur to you how purely com- 
parative the thing called happiness is? No 
one can put his finger on this or that event 
or condition and say, "There is happiness." 
No man can say to his neighbor, "Do this 
and you will be happy," in the sense of pure 
physical happiness. Happiness is depend- 
ent absolutely on one's present condition 
compared with his previous circumstances. 
The goal marked "Happiness" is not in the 
same spot for everyone. In fact, for a 
given individual, it recedes and advances 
with amazing eccentricity. For example, 
there were days which come vividly to 
mind when a few hours' sleep would have 
filled my cup of happiness to the brim; 
other times when, lying alone and unable to 
secure it, a cup of water would have 
brought to my parched throat more de- 



104 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

light than ambrosial nectar. Many morn- 
ings I lay in my room, where I could get a 
glimpse of the courtyard, and watched a 
washerwoman hanging clothes on a line, 
and envied her lot as fervently as Lot 
coveted the fat plains of Sodom. I would 
have bartered away education, prospects — 
everything I had — for that rough woman's 
ability to stand up with full possession of 
physical powers and hang those clothes 
(mess of pottage, though it seems now). 
Sometimes I have actually wished that I 
could change places with the dogs which 
I could see running around in the grass on 
a hillside outside the window, as they ran 
here and there in the sunshine of God's 
out of doors, while I had to lie motionless 
on a hard bed. To-day those thoughts 
seem foolish, and almost profane. It is 
because my body is in a different condition 
to-day, and my mind more orderly and fit 
to judge of true values. 

Everyone has known his ideals and ideas 
to change in similar manner. When a little 
chap you coveted no more glorious ex- 



LESSONS OF A SANITARIUM 105 

perience than you felt sitting astride a 
gaily painted warhorse, going round and 
round to the noisy music of a merry-go- 
round. Yet to-day you flee from those 
same sounds as hideous noise. To a poor 
man a horse and carriage represent vast 
opportunities of pleasure and profit, but 
the millionaire scorns anything less than a 
six-cylinder, forty -horse-power touring car. 
To a man with two good legs a walk on 
crutches does not suggest great delight, but 
for a man who has lain in bed and sat in a 
chair for a year a creeping walk down a 
carpeted hall on two crutches is cause for 
great joy and as much congratulation as 
the winning of a Marathon race would be 
to an athlete. A thousand similar instances 
might be invoked to show how variable and 
comparative a thing happiness is — how 
dependent on personal environment and 
ideals, conditions and customs. 

Joy of a New Birth 

That may partially explain the joy and 
exhilaration of the newborn soul. Having 



106 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

been in the darkness of sin long, the rising 
sun of salvation dazzles and delights him 
with ineffable bliss. Having carried a load 
of guilt all his life, the redeemed one must 
feel all joy is found in the rolling off of that 
burden from his shoulders. And the joy of 
the conversion experience we should nat- 
urally expect to be commensurate with the 
blackness of the sinful life before, the 
weight of the sin carried through many 
years. To a man who had wandered in 
such pitch blackness as Paul, the ex- 
perience might well be an illumination 
above the light of noonday sun, and in 
such a man's account of Christian ex- 
periences we might look for "joy un- 
speakable," "glories," and doxologies. To 
the unrepentant, self-satisfied Pharisee the 
presence of Jesus at his board meant little; 
but to the sinning woman, who had been 
pardoned for her many black iniquities and 
given a new, clean nature, it meant the 
bliss of heaven itself to be near him, and 
prompted a gratitude which showed itself 
in tears bedewing the feet of her Master. 



LESSONS OF A SANITARIUM 107 

For, "to whom little is forgiven, the same 
loveth little." Perhaps on the same con- 
sideration may be explained the ecstasy 
and demonstrative joy which converts from 
the lower classes exhibit, and which to 
those who have never been freed from such 
revolting sins may seem weakly emotional, 
extravagant, or vulgar. 

Heaven, Therefore, Not to Be Defined in Dogmatic 
Precision 

For similar reasons heaven cannot be set 
down as a particular condition, or set of 
conditions, the same for all, such as gold 
streets, jeweled walls, ceaseless rest, and 
music of harps. Possession of gold and 
jewels does not signify unusual splendor or 
delight to some who have all their life here 
been surrounded by such costly metal and 
stones. And everlasting rest would not be 
a thing even to be desired by the invalid 
who all her days had been "resting" in 
the sense of being unable to work. Even 
idleness accompanied by harps of joyous 
sound would not fulfill her dreams of hap- 



108 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

piness like the ability to move and work. 
No, heaven cannot be described in terms of 
material delight, for delight is so uncertain 
and variable a thing. Heaven can be de- 
scribed to human understanding only by 
saying that it is that place or condition 
where the holiest and truest ideals of each 
person are realized, where the highest con- 
ception of happiness which the individual 
harbored during life shall come into frui- 
tion. Only this must be stipulated: the 
most perfect joy a pure heart can know, 
nearness to Jesus, that one absolute and 
unsurpassable standard of happiness, will 
be attained by each one of us. 

As for other things, our conditions now, 
our dreams and hopes are so many that it 
were folly and presumption for anyone to 
describe the Celestial City or life. For the 
weary it is rest; for the hungry, food; for 
the lonely, heaven were friends; for the 
feeble, health. The kingdom of God in 
heaven is the making universal the king- 
dom of God on earth, where the blind 
receive their sight, the lame walk, the 



LESSONS OF A SANITARIUM 109 

lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead 
are raised up, and the poor have the 
gospel preached unto them. What more 
need we know concerning the abode of the 
blest? Why speculate as to the color of 
streets or the architecture of the walls? 
It is enough to know that there every pure 
desire shall be satisfied, every unselfish 
dream come true, and every vestige of 
sadness shall vanish; sorrow and sighing 
shall flee away, and God shall wipe away all 
tears from their eyes. Thus, however 
various our conditions and ideals here, we 
may know that heaven means the complete 
satisfaction of that ideal — the filling of 
every want which is in harmony with the 
lofty character of that land where God is 
the light. 

Nor Hell Located and Its Temperature Taken 

The irresistible conclusion is that heaven 
is an impossible and unthinkable place to 
him who has cherished no good thing or 
had no just or holy thing as his summum 
bonum. Base, corrupt desires would no 



110 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

sooner ripen there than roses bloom in a rock 
heap. He who has cherished unholy pur- 
poses, impure and hateful imaginings, as his 
idea of bliss is doomed only to disappoint- 
ment, remorse, and banishment from all 
good — not by an arbitrary fiat, but by 
the perversion of his own ideals of happi- 
ness. As the chaff is swept away by the 
wind, or as the wood, hay, stubble are 
consumed by fire, so naturally and irrev- 
ocably is the wicked barred from the 
ripening of any pure ideal, borne away 
from heaven to eternal disappointment. 
Then, it may be, as his unholy, base ideals 
reach their consummation in some condi- 
tion of unspeakable vileness, in the light- 
ning flash of doom he is given a glimpse of 
the impassable gulf — a quick, poignant 
sense of what he has missed — and left to 
brood eternally over the saddest words in 
tongue or pen, "It might have been/' 

It is in ourselves — our present circum- 
stances and ideals of right and happiness — 
that our eternal destiny is fixed. Goats are 
not made goats, nor sheep, sheep, at the 



LESSONS OF A SANITARIUM HI 

time of dividing. The Judge does not 
make the sheep- or goat-nature; he only 
recognizes it and divides them according 
to a type already established. Can his 
love or justice be impeached for seeing 
what already exists? The kingdom of 
heaven "hereafter" as well as "here" is 
"within you" now, and forever; or else 
the kingdom of hell is there. And no one 
put it there or keeps it there but you! 



CHAPTER IV 

Cui Bono? 

The Question of a Chastened Child 

In common with unnumbered thousands 
of bewildered pupils who have been in the 
school of affliction, I have often wondered 
"what it was all about/' "why it was per- 
mitted/' Lying unmovable in bed with 
the sunshine outdoors inviting, and the 
work of the world calling, I have through 
many an hour searched earnestly for some 
satisfying method to justify "the ways of 
God to men/ 5 especially such ways of un- 
deserved tribulation as comes upon so 
many children. A man who is smitten 
hard by the hand of God (or, as some may 
prefer to put it, smitten hard by the hand 
of Satan, God permitting) will do one of 
two things: he must inevitably drift away 
from a position of trust in God and his 
goodness, or else he will evolve or discover 

some "philosophy/' though it may not 

112 



CUI BONO? 113 

bear that name, which reconciles his pres- 
ent affliction and his conception of God's 
goodness. A father's chastisement is bound 
either to drive his son away in rebellion or 
draw him nearer with a purer, clearer love. 
During the days that I struggled in the 
semidarkness to find this raison d'etre for 
a body half-paralyzed, and a life hope 
wholly crushed, I lighted on some pregnant 
words in a rather long and involved sen- 
tence of Peter's first letter (1 Pet. 1. 3-8), 
which, w r hen I had reflected on them for a 
time, let the light into my darkened soul 
with such relief as the wanderer in a deep, 
dark cave must feel when he sees a glimmer 
of sunshine in the distance. The particular 
words which let in the light were these: 
"Now for a little while, if need be, ye have 
been put to grief in manifold trials, that 
the proof of your faith, being more pre- 
cious than gold that perisheth though it is 
proved by fire, may be found unto praise 
and glory and honor at the revelation of 
Jesus Christ." Peter's deliberate "that," 
placed after "ye have been put to grief," 



114 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

quickened my troubled mind to discover, 
or at least get a clue to, the answer of the 
problem of ages, which just then was also 
a very pertinent and personal question to 
me, that is, the use of "manifold trials" in 
a Christian's life. Peter seemed here to be 
calmly setting out to show the Christians of 
the dispersion what was the good of their 
grief. So I paused at Peter's "that" and 
proceeded slowly and prayerfully to dis- 
cover, if I might, what the apostle's 
philosophy of trouble might be, what 
consolation he could offer his afflicted 
brothers then and now. A man will en- 
dure, or accept calmly, almost anything if 
he can see sufficient reason for it, or ulti- 
mate good to come from it. 

The Big Problem Peter Attacks 

I knew that it was a tremendous project 
he undertook. To find the "missing link" 
between a Christian's affliction and God's 
mercy, to bolster the faith of a hard- 
smitten believer, is no light recreation for 
the afternoon. There is a wide gap to be 



CUI BONO? 115 

filled or bridged, a great "aching void" 
that needs to be occupied with sane, sooth- 
ing reason. Suffering is as old as human 
hearts. Ever since God established per- 
fect, harmonious laws governing this earth 
man has broken those laws, that is, 
"sinned," and thereby brought sickness, 
sorrow, and death upon himself as the 
penalty. 

Shut our eyes to it, theorize about it, 
deny it all we may, trouble and affliction 
are here, and have always been here. They 
come to the good and the bad; saint and 
sinner suffer alike. The devouring fire 
knows no difference between a martyr and 
a traitor. The falling tree crushes the 
just man as heavily as it does the prowling 
thief; diphtheria lays waste the home of a 
God-fearing Christian as remorselessly as it 
does the home of an infidel. Goodness and 
piety are no guarantee against sickness, 
accident, or death. In truth, it seems 
sometimes as though the children of God 
were chastened more severely than the 
children of the devil. Often we see the 



116 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

sinner spreading himself like a green bay 
tree, while the saint languishes in poverty 
or is bathed in hot tears of bereavement. 
Only recall how the noblest of God's men 
have suffered. Elijah, hounded by a 
wicked king, driven to the hills and rocks 
in hunger and thirst; Daniel, who defiled 
not himself, given over to the lions; the 
three young Hebrews, who would not bow 
to the graven image, tossed into the fire; 
David, the sweet singer of Israel, com- 
pelled to suffer a broken heart, and weep, 
"Would God I had died for thee, Absalom, 
my son, my son"; Job, the upright man, 
given over to the merciless affliction of the 
Evil One. To realize how universal, and 
how apparently unjust, is suffering, we 
have only to review these and all the suffer- 
ing saints of history who have been stoned, 
sawn asunder, slain with the sword, gone 
about in sheepskins, in goatskins, destitute, 
illtreated, wandering in deserts and moun- 
tains and caves and holes of the earth; 
all that "noble army, men and boys, the 
matron and the maid," 



CUI BONO? 117 

Who climbed the steep ascent of heaven 
Through peril, toil, and pain. 

Bereavement, like God, is no respecter of 
persons. "Man that is born of woman" — 
that is, every man — "is of few days and full 
of trouble." 

The Sunday School Reason for Trial 

When we thought of these things in Sun- 
day school, as little children (if we may call 
it "thinking"), the reason and justification 
of these virtuous men's trouble never both- 
ered us a bit. For our simple, trustful 
minds there used to be a skeleton key 
which opened the mystery of every case 
of a good man's persecution. When we 
were asked why Abraham had to leave a 
pleasant, comfortable home in Ur to wan- 
der in unknown lands, the safe and ready 
answer was, "To try his faith." Why did 
he have to go through all the tortures of 
slaying his son, to be prevented at the 
actual deed? "To try his faith." Why 
should the righteous man, Job, lose every- 
thing dear to him, and then suffer bodily 



118 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

torture? "To try his faith." So, down 
through the list of good men that suffered, 
we could always justify it by that pious- 
sounding and convenient phrase, "To try 
his faith. " It was enough for credulous 
child minds, the "open sesame" at which 
the doors of that baffling problem swung 
open and the goodness of God was pre- 
served! It may be that some of us since 
childhood have tried to quell the rebellious 
thoughts engendered of fiery trials in the 
same way. 

But when the days of childish credulity 
are past, that magic phrase fails to satisfy. 
We want to know the "why" of a burden, 
the "wherefore" of a testing. Despite the 
poetic exhortation, it is hard to 

Welcome each rebuff 

That turns earth's smoothness rough, 

Each sting that bids nor sit, not stand, but go ! 

Be our joy three parts pain! 

We would know the reason for that three 
parts that is pain. We demand to know why 
God tests our faith, and how faith is any 



CUI BONO? 119 

more valuable after testing than before. 
Now, Peter, in his letter of condolence, 
essays to explain the pain part, and show 
the value of sorely tried faith. But, in the 
words he writes, his promise seems to be 
far from fulfilled; his reach much exceeds 
his grasp. He does not say expressly how 
this faith which has been proved in fire 
is any more valuable than any other faith, 
but seems to beg the question by putting, 
in a parenthetical participle, the crux of the 
whole question — "being more precious than 
gold that perishes though it is proved by 
fire." Just how "more precious" he appears 
to assume that everyone knows, and so 
hurries over the very point that many 
look most eagerly for. Many of us do not 
know just what the value of a tested faith 
is. To find this value, and fill out the 
important step of Peter's rapid logic, I 
spent some time in meditation. And the 
effort of discovering for myself some of 
these missing values, so often obscured by 
pain, was richly rewarded, as the labor of 
a miner who after much digging comes upon 



120 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

a nugget of pure gold, is repaid a thousand- 
fold. 

Three Values of a Proved Faith 

By earnest heart-searching and observa- 
tion I came to the conclusion that the 
tested, tried faith of a believer is of ex- 
ceeding value in three respects at least. 
And each of these three values of a tested, 
triumphant faith is, of course, a justifica- 
tion of God's allowing faith to be so tested. 

First: Worth to the Tested 

First, the faith which has been tried is of 
higher value than the untried to the pos- 
sessor of that faith himself. The one most 
directly and quickly benefited is the man 
who has found out, by process of suffering, 
that he possesses a 

faith that will not shrink, 
Though pressed by every foe, 
That will not tremble on the brink 
Of any earthly woe. 

Blessed is the man who, having prayed 
for that sort of faith, knows by experience 
that it is his. The process of proving «a 



CUI BONO? 121 

man's faith either destroys it utterly or 
strengthens it mightily. It is only by risk- 
ing his weight upon his shaky legs, trying 
again and again till success comes, that the 
invalid learns to trust the strength of his 
limbs. It is by trusting all our burdens on 
the promises that a burdened one knows 
the worth of God's promises. Not till he 
has met and grappled with every sort of 
problem that confronts him does he know 
the supremacy of mind over all things. 
Certainty and confidence, physical or spirit- 
ual, come only to him that has met and 
conquered opposition. 

Many Christians have a faith which is 
well-nigh valueless to themselves, as well 
as to others, because it has never been sub- 
jected to pressure. It is like an unused arm 
which slowly atrophies because it never 
meets or overcomes resistance. Here lie 
two boats tugging at their anchors, to either 
of which we may trust our life and fortune. 
One is fresh from the shipbuilder's dock; 
every spar and rope brand-new — engine and 
boiler never heated by fire; propeller never 



122 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

turned in water; decks, furnishings, all un- 
marred by wear. Gleaming in fresh paint, 
bright and perfect as builders' theory can 
make it, the boat rises and falls gracefully 
with the swell of the ocean — hut it never has 
made a trip. Theoretically it is perfect; 
experimentally it is unknown. The other 
boat is more weather-beaten; the sides 
have been pounded by the waves till some 
of the paint is gone. Ropes and cable have 
been worn by use. Rudder, propeller, and 
engines have lost the shine of newness, for 
they have been tested; they have driven 
and guided the ship through real storms, 
and the elements have been defeated by 
them. Though not so jaunty in appearance, 
the latter boat is proved seaworthy; and to 
her the wise man trusts his life, for she has 
been tried. She inspires confidence and 
promises safety in the midst of storm, 
while the other is still untested, 

Unweathered Faith 

Now, some spiritual faith is like an un- 
tried boat; it may be sound, it may be 



CUI BONO? 123 

unsound. Sometimes our religion looks 
good externally; theoretically it is all 
right; we label it "orthodox." But it 
needs weathering; it has never been tried 
out in the struggle of life. The faith which 
we take out into the world with us is bound 
to receive many hard knocks. It receives 
a jolt from unpopularity. Then sickness, 
which we can't explain, hits it a hard 
blow. Our dearest friend dies, and faith 
nearly dies with him. The career which we 
had planned is blocked, our hopes crushed, 
and faith totters with the blows. When 
faith returns from its struggle against all 
the forces of spirit and flesh it is like the 
weather-beaten boat — safer; like the battle- 
scarred shield — more dependable; like the 
cut diamond — more radiant and precious. 

'Tis only after his faith is proved that 
Job can cry, "I know that my Redeemer 
liveth." Not until he has been beaten, 
shipwrecked, imprisoned for his faith, can 
Paul shout, "I know whom I have be- 
lieved." Not until he had lived almost a 
hundred years, buffeted by the world, 



124 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

finally exiled for his belief in Christ, could 
John write, "That which we have seen and 
heard declare we unto you." These men 
had theorized before; they had written 
inspiringly; but they knew then. Luther 
never knew the saving power of faith until 
he had struggled with his doubts and 
questions in the monk's cell and found the 
victory that overcometh the world, "even 
our faith." As the love of the aged man for 
his white-haired helpmeet, tested and true 
through years of common burdens and sor- 
rows shared, is stronger than the love of a 
youth for a maiden, so is the faith that has 
been shaken by grief, wrenched by perse- 
cution, stronger and more precious than the 
untried faith. 

No, God is not satisfying his curiosity 
in testing men's faith. He doesn't bow men 
in grief just to see how much they will 
stand before they "curse God and die." I 
have no such heartless God as that. The 
testing of Abraham, of Elijah, of Peter, 
and all the saints from the beginning till 
now was not for God's sake, primarily, 



CUI BONO? 125 

but for theirs — to reveal to them the worth, 
the staying power of that faith which they 
had. It was to enhance to them the value 
of that which they possessed, unknowingly 
sometimes. The teacher who sets hard 
problems for his pupil is not satisfying his 
own desire, but trying to awaken the mind 
of the child, and bring him to realize the 
possibilities of mind and reason. So, many 
of us struggle and fret out our lives with the 
problem of sorrow and injustice that comes 
to us. But out of that struggle and pain is 
born the glorious conviction that faith is 
the most precious thing in life or death. 

Its Worth to Beholders 

A proved faith is precious, not alone to 
its possessor, but to those who witness it. 
Indeed, its effect upon others is most 
marked and helpful. What to-day is the 
strongest argument for Christianity? If I 
wanted to present the religion of Christ in 
the strongest possible form, I would not 
look in the pages of Christian philosophy 
or dogmatic theology. The most effective 



126 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

argument in favor of Christianity is found 
in the purified, sweetened faith of a Chris- 
tian man or woman who has suffered afflic- 
tion, and come out of it crying with Job, 
"Though he slay me, yet will I trust him." 
Theories and arguments may be under- 
mined, but the irresistible proof of the 
value of a Christian faith is in the trust of 
a humble soul that neither sickness nor 
disappointment nor death can shake. In 
the sanitarium where I spent seven months 
there lived a young woman who for years 
had not been able to go outside her 
room. At times she was racked with in- 
describable pain; she could not even enjoy 
God's sunlight, but had to live, day after 
day, in a darkened room. In a room, not 
far from hers, lay her father, hopelessly 
paralyzed. Under all these afflictions, the 
girl, for she was hardly more, had a spirit 
as bright and cheerful as an angel's; a 
visit to her room was inspiring; she had 
so far forgotten herself that solely by 
the power of prayer she raised over two 
thousand dollars for a hospital for crippled 



CUI BONO? 127 

children in China. Calm, sweet, patient, 
the chastened faith of that young woman 
preached stronger sermons in that sani- 
tarium and thereabouts than the most 
eloquent preachers who have stood in the 
beautiful chapel below her room. The 
remark which nurses, attendants, everyone 
w T ho came in contact with her, most fre- 
quently made was, "If there ever was a 
Christian, she is one." 

What could the sophistry and chicanery 
of the Pharisee do against the testimony of 
a Lazarus, or an erstwhile blind man who 
declares, emphatically, "Whether he be 
sinner or no, I know not: one thing I know, 
that, whereas I was blind, now I see"? 
That thing which compels the attention 
and respect of men to-day is a whole mul- 
titude of humble believers who say: "The 
source and purpose of this bitter sorrow I 
know not. One thing I do know: the 
consolation of God is sufficient — my faith 
in him has only been deepened." 

That genuine, reliable recommendation 
appeals to the hard-headed man of to-day. 



128 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

He wants things certain when he buys and 
sells. The iron which goes into the best 
buildings, automobiles, and machinery must 
be tested before it is purchased. A bridge 
must sustain so much pressure per square 
foot before it is accepted from the builder. 
And the religion which the practical man 
of to-day accepts is that one which he has 
seen put to the test and survive the severest 
strain. The same principle explains why 
the church grew by leaps and bounds when 
Roman emperors tried to crush it out with 
persecution. The faith which mocked at 
prison walls, survived the bloody scenes of 
the arena, flourished in midst of flame, 
recommended itself to others faster than 
insane emperors could stamp it out. 

Kingdoms are not won to Christ by the 
words of preachers, but by the blood of 
martyrs. Prophets could have preached 
forever in the idolatrous kingdom of Nebu- 
chadnezzar, but they would never have 
turned that king and land from worship- 
ing idols nor elicited the words which the 
spectacle of three young men walking in 



CUI BONO? 129 

furnace flames for the sake of their God 
called forth from the astonished king: 
"Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, 
and Abed-nego, . . . Therefore I make a 
decree, that every people, nation, and 
language, which speak anything amiss 
against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and 
Abed-nego, shall be cut in pieces, and their 
houses shall be made a dunghill: because 
there is no other God that can deliver 
after this sort/' That was a victory of 
faith, literally tried in the fire, 

A tested faith is the best advertisement 
for the religion of Christ because it stamps 
"Sterling" upon a man's profession. When 
onlookers find it they know that there is 
no empty sham, no mere veneer of religion. 
A plated religion would have been de- 
stroyed with the heat of suffering. This 
which has come out unimpaired must be 
genuine, pure, and undefiled before God 
and man. 

Such Faith Precious Too in God's Sight 

We see, then, that this proved faith is 



130 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

peculiarly valuable to the one tested, to 
the world observing it; and, finally, may 
we not complete this trinity of values by 
saying that a proved faith is precious to 
God himself? Not that God gloats over 
the sorrows of man, or demands human 
heartbreaks and sacrifice to complete his 
nature or happiness; not even that God 
sends trouble. But, in one sense, the odor 
of incense is sweet to God. He does prize 
most highly that devotion which neither 
height nor depth, nor principalities nor 
powers, nor things present nor things to 
come could weaken. The love of a baby 
boy is precious to the earthly father. But 
when that boy has grown to be a man, 
strong and noble like his father; after he 
has borne unpopularity, abuse, poverty, 
that he may be true to his father's teaching, 
loyal to his father's name, there must be a 
pride mingled with that father's love for his 
boy which was not there before. The child 
has proved himself a son, a worthy son in 
whom the father may take delight. So I 
believe God delights in his children, espe- 



FROM CHAIR TO PULPIT 131 

cially when they have proved themselves 
true to him in spite of every allurement of 
the devil, every affliction that the king of 
death can inflict. If the death of his saints 
is precious in God's sight, how much more 
highly must God value their life, when for 
his sake they "die daily"? 

It is this Godward side of the value of 
their fortitude that Peter reminds his 
readers of. "That the proof of your faith, 
. . . may be found unto praise and glory 
and honor at the revelation of Jesus 
Christ. " In other words, the apostle says 
that the bravery and faith which you have 
displayed in your persecution is to appear 
to the praise and honor and glory of Jesus 
Christ. In nobly bearing sorrows you are 
not only benefiting yourself, but your 
triumphant faith enhances the glory of 
Jesus Christ. "At the revelation" doesn't 
necessarily mean at some future time at 
the close of the dispensation. It means 
now, in the burdens borne, in the grief 
that bows one to the earth, Christ is re- 
vealed, if faith in God's love and wisdom 



132 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

persists. Where the widow drops a tear 
upon the face of her dead child and says, 
"Thy will be done," there the world is 
given a glimpse of Christ — a second Geth- 
semane. Where the strong man is brought 
low by sickness, and his loved ones face 
starvation, while he still declares with un- 
shaken faith, "All things work together for 
good to them that love God," there is a 
revelation of the Man of Sorrows. In the 
tragedies of life on every side, where men 
struggle alone with grief and come off 
true to God, there is Via Dolorosa; where 
a Savonarola, a Paul, a Peter, or a Wycliffe 
gives his heart's blood that others may 
have the true gospel of Christ, there is a 
Calvary, Christ is revealed and God is 
glorified. Though men can never know the 
full intensity of the Saviour's agony, count- 
less men and women, in crowded cities and 
lonely farms, are echoing from their hearts 
the cry of the Christ, "My God, my God, 
why hast thou forsaken me?" In the 
blackness of their despair they truly be- 
lieve that God has forsaken them, that his 



CUI BONO? 133 

ear is as deaf as Baal's to the imprecation 
of his priests on Carmel. But God has not 
forgotten them; his face is not turned away 
(it was never so near). He does note the 
sparrow's fall, and he does suffer with the 
child of his whose heart is broken. And the 
worn, distracted soul that trusts faithfully 
will hear, "Come unto me, all ye that labor 
and are heavy laden." The bodies that are 
wrecks of disease or shattered by accident 
shall feel that "underneath are the ever- 
lasting arms." 

Think you not that these patient souls, 
who reveal in their suffering a Saviour who 
was bruised and wounded, reviled and 
obedient unto death, are precious in the 
sight of God? The tried faith of these is 
more precious than gold that perisheth, 
though it be proved by fire, for it shall 
never perish. Such persistent, triumphant 
faith lives forever. Proved and true, it 
stands as an invitation to all men to accept 
the same God. Glorified and chastened, it 
shines throughout eternity to light the city 
of God. And of these, whether of Peter's 



134 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

age, or the present time, whose faith in the 
living God is proved, it will be said, when 
they stand among the blest: "What are 
these which are arrayed in white robes? 
and whence came they? These are they 
which came out of great tribulation, and 
have washed their robes, and made them 
white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore 
are they before the throne of God, and 
serve him day and night in his temple: 
and he that sitteth on the throne shall 
dwell among them. They shall hunger no 
more; neither thirst any more, neither 
shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. 
For the Lamb which is in the midst of the 
throne shall feed them, and shall lead 
them unto living fountains of waters: and 
God shall wipe away all tears from their 
eyes." 



CHAPTER V 

From the Chair into the Pulpit 

The Bitterest Pain to Bear 

The hardest thing about this rude and 
unexpected blow with a half-ton derrick 
which had inaugurated me into the place 
of wheel-chair philosopher was, all along, 
not the physical pain, but mental despair, 
the bitter disappointment which confronted 
me in regard to my lifework. Since I had 
been old enough to wish anything I had 
wished I could be a preacher. I do not 
know when any "call" came. There were 
no cherubim, nor coals of fire, no miracu- 
lous voice from above or below, but, some- 
how, as naturally as I grew into long 
trousers I grew into the idea of being a 
minister. I can now barely remember 
climbing up into a chair, when a little boy, 
to wave my hands and arms frantically and 
make believe to preach. I suspect that 
those early ventures into homiletics must 

135 



136 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

have had more gesture than gospel (a fault 
which some of us who are older preachers 
still possess). When I was about six years 
old I declared confidentially to a group of 
amused friends that "I believed I would 
be a preacher if I only knew what to say." 
The dream of childhood had grown more 
and more distinct, until, hastened perhaps 
by a big brother in the ministry, it ripened 
into ambition, then into preparation for the 
work of preaching. All the years of educa- 
tion, from childhood up, I spent trying to 
find "what to say," until, at the time of the 
accident, I was prepared as well as college 
and seminary could prepare me to "say 
it." And then! With the fall of that 
derrick my air castle was shivered into 
pieces. The hardest blow that afternoon, 
and that one which looked most surely 
fatal, was the one which crushed my hope 
of preaching. In a second of time the 
cherished dreams of twenty years and the 
direct preparation of ten years were shat- 
tered. As I used to sit and reconstruct 
air castles out of the remains of the fallen 



FROM CHAIR TO PULPIT 137 

ones, I repeated often to myself the scrip- 
ture which said that Jesus "sat down" to 
teach the people, and, as a sort of vain 
hope, dwelt upon the careers of a few illus- 
trious preachers who had sat down in their 
preaching. But, inwardly, I knew that 
sitting down to teach had gone irrevocably 
out of fashion, and that there was nothing 
illustrious enough about me to induce any 
congregation to come and hear me preach 
sitting in a wheel chair. It did look, how- 
ever I might try to evade the fact, as though 
to me the preaching vocation had been 
closed; that door seemed to be shut and 
barred against me. It was this fact which 
hurt every time I faced it. I believe that 
the only times I ever wept during the two 
years of helpless waiting were on some Sun- 
day mornings when the sound of ringing 
church bells was wafted into my room, and 
it came over me with a sickening flash that 
I, who had aspired to be the preacher and 
pastor of a church, could not even go to 
worship with other people in answer to the 
call of the "sweet church bell." 



138 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

Hoping (and Preparing) Against Fate 

But still I kept hoping against fate, and 
harbored deep in my heart a determination 
that I should yet proclaim the gospel. This 
I did against the counsel of the most hope- 
ful physician who had treated me, and who 
had kindly but firmly assured me that I 
could never follow so active a vocation as 
preaching, though I might enter some 
quiet, sedate line of work like teaching. 
But the work of teaching never had any 
charm for me, even if I had possessed any 
ability for it; so I kept up my preparation, 
nosed around in the theological books of 
the sanitarium library, and studied a little 
Greek Testament each day, just as though 
I expected to receive a call to a church any 
day. I even came upon an auction sale of 
an old minister's books, and carried a dozen 
of them home with as much triumph and 
joy as any pastor in the active work. When 
I became strong enough to walk (or wab- 
ble) on two canes my hope shot up many 
degrees higher. I went so far as to inform 
superintendents of nearby districts that I 



FROM CHAIR TO TULPIT 139 

was "available as a pulpit supply," and 
wrote to my elder brother (whom I always 
considered capable of accomplishing any- 
thing he desired) to look for a vacancy for 
me in his Conference. In my eagerness to 
be at my chosen and loved work I could 
overlook obstacles and difficulties as easily 
as did Caleb in the land of the giants and 
Philistines. If a man could walk between 
two canes, it appeared to me that he 
ought easily to stand still and preach be- 
hind a pulpit. The matter of getting to 
the pulpit, or doing parish work, I naively 
overlooked or trusted God for improvement 
enough to cover those discrepancies in my 
plans. 

"Hope Deferred' ■ 

So I waited, hoped, prayed, and pre- 
pared for the opening that was to appear, 
just as if I knew some official members were 
even then framing a call to me. Writing 
on a board laid over the arms of my chair, 
I even prepared a couple of sermons for 
imaginary congregations. But of these ser- 



140 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

mons ever lodging in anyone's heart I am 
skeptical, just as I doubt that one could 
hit a bull's eye, shooting at an imaginary 
target. Day after day I waited, but in 
vain. Mail after mail I awaited, looking 
eagerly for some message from somewhere 
that would open a crack, at least, in the 
door of opportunity, but all uselessly. Day 
after day slipped by, until "hope deferred" 
nearly indeed made my "heart sick." The 
monotony of dressing, meals, baths, treat- 
ments went on undisturbed by anything 
more exciting than a tumble in the middle 
of the road, which I took one day while I 
was showing off how well I could walk 
with my canes. No one seemed anxious 
to get a four-legged preacher; no message 
came. I became so despondent that I 
began to wonder if I really could be a 
professor, and to speculate whether I was 
more qualified to teach Greek, physical 
culture, domestic science, or manual train- 
ing, or whether I would have to take a 
"deestric skule" and teach them all at 
once. 



FROM CHAIR TO TULPIT HI 

At Last 

But at last it came ! I sat one day in my 
wheel chair, just about a year after I had 
"quit work" so peremptorily, when the 
yellow envelope of the Western Union 
Telegraph Company w^as handed to me. 
I knew, without opening it, that my "call" 
had come. I knew then that God had 
heard the prayers; and, after proper lessons 
in the fine art of waiting, had answered 
me. Though it came in different manner 
than Isaiah's, Samuel's, or Paul's, that 
Western Union Telegraph Company's yel- 
low envelope was just as distinctly divine a 
call as though it had come by way of cheru- 
bim, a still, night voice, or a noonday blaze. 
The message of the telegram was simply 
to "come at once," signed by my brother. 
Where and why were left for me to assume, 
but I did not spend much time debating 
either question. I walked by faith. I 
just went out like Abraham, toward Ca- 
naan, or like Paul going down into the 
street called Straight to wait for further 
orders. 



142 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 
Glad, and Sad Exit 

Several great men, like Trajan, Hanni- 
bal, Xerxes, and Caesar, have had 
"triumphal entries"; but I had a triumphal 
exit from that sanitarium after seven months 
of crippled life there. While I was reluc- 
tant to leave many good friends, I was 
glad to bid farewell to pain, dependence, 
and uselessness, and took to the joy of serv- 
ice which I trusted was set before me now. 
What though I did have a cane in each 
hand to steady me, it was better than being 
carried on and off the train, as when I had 
come out there. I was able to walk into a 
passenger car and sit down, and that was 
infinitely better than being trundled into a 
baggage car with trunks and dogs. It 
seemed to me as I was carried away on the 
train that morning that the Great Divide 
in my life was reached; another chapter of 
my life was about to open. Invalidism, 
nursing, chairs — all these were behind. 
That door of opportunity and usefulness 
which for a year had seemed tight shut 
and barred was even now being unbarred, 



FROM CHAIR TO PULPIT 143 

and was showing a crack of light along the 
edge. Though the beyond was entirely 
mysterious and unknown as yet, still, with 
the sight of a gleam, there was hope of the 
day beyond, and I was determined to fol- 
low the gleam and trust God to broaden 
the crack and brighten the ray. 

11 On Trial " in the World 

At nightfall I was at my brother's town, 
where I was to receive my "marching 
orders." As I came slowly off the train 
there and walked along as bravely as I 
could with my two canes helping me, 
there began a period, extending over the 
next few months, which I might call my 
"preliminary examination" in the world of 
activity. I was out here in the world 
again; in a measure I was "on my feet" 
once more, or endeavoring to be, and a 
candidate for a man's work in the world. 
From that afternoon when my brother cor- 
dially welcomed me I knew that almost all 
who looked at me were estimating the 
probabilities of my success or failure, weigh- 



144 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

ing my chances of keeping up with the 
procession of world's workers. And the 
chances did look slim while I had to cling 
to two canes, and had the pallor of a year's 
invalidism still on my face. I doubt if 
many who saw me and knew of the fight 
which was on would have risked much 
money staking me as a winner. But I 
went blandly along, "my hat in the ring," 
and determined it would stay there until an- 
other accident or relapse "kicked it out." 

My brother gave me my directions and 
much good advice, and sent me off to the 
town up north where I was to make my 
determined try for life and health and 
work. He said many encouraging things 
which were calculated to inspire and 
strengthen me for that first Sunday's work, 
but down in his heart he had little expec- 
tation that I would actually "make good." 
I know that small hope was mingled with 
much kindness of heart because of a letter 
he wrote me, to reach me Monday after the 
first Sunday, in which he exhorted me not 
to take it hard if I had failed to get through 



FROM CHAIR TO TULPIT 145 

the work all right on the day previous, and 
advised me what to do in case of failure, 
and reproached himself for having sent me 
out in so difficult a field when I was phys- 
ically unqualified. 

My Debut as a Preacher Once More 

But while he was penning this letter 
which was to serve me as a cushion to let 
me down easy when I fell back in disap- 
pointment, I was speeding north on a train, 
trustfully, blissfully ignorant of his faith- 
lessness, and full of hopes and dreams of 
rosy hue. The manner of this opportunity 
that had come was on this wise: A country 
pastor had suddenly left the ministry; a 
circuit of two churches was left pastorless 
in the middle of the year, and superin- 
tendent and officials were anxious to fill 
the vacancy without delay. Being near at 
hand, and more ready (and anxious) to go 
than any available man, I was given the 
chance. I was to go, preach a few Sundays, 
try the work, and let folks examine me. 
Then if both parties were satisfied there 



146 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

was a possibility of my remaining until 
Conference in the spring. My stock in 
the success of the venture was not rated 
very high. I was below par, and going 
down with every person that looked at me 

from the time I arrived in P -. 

A benevolent old gentleman met me at 
the station — fortunately, with a horse and 
carriage. He took me to the house where 
I was to board and left, inwardly wonder- 
ing, I think, whether the superintendent 
had gone crazy to send them a man who 
looked as though he ought to be abed, and 
wondering more at the audacity of the man' 
who would pose as a preacher and impose 
on a helpless Methodist church. Pretty 
soon other official brethren appeared to 
"look over" what had arrived. A few 
escorted me across the way to the church 
that I might see the place which was to 
be the scene of my "trial heat" on the 
morrow. It was a fine, neat, well-kept 
country church; all the men appeared to be 
keen and sympathetic. One who has never 
felt the tug of the preacher-man can 



FROM CHAIR TO PULPIT 147 

never know how I longed, as I looked at 
the pulpit, to have it to call "mine" — a 
place from which I could tell the glorious 
truth of Jesus who had saved me, body 
and soul, from death, and saved me to 
serve. 

A Memorable Sunday for Me 

After having inspected things, and hav- 
ing been inspected, the Saturday wore 
away, and Sunday was upon me. A 
memorable Sunday was that (in my little 
world). I opened my eyes on that Sab- 
bath morning elated and yet fearful — elated 
in spirit at the thought of once more hav- 
ing opportunity and strength to preach, 
yet fearful too lest, in case of failure, it 
should be my last chance for another long 
time. On that day I was to test my legs 
and mouth once more in the King's busi- 
ness. But, profiting by months of waiting 
and watching, in which time patience had 
experienced nearly her "perfect work," I 
ceased worry and anxiety, and went about 
the work of the day trusting God to carry 



148 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

me through and make my words acceptable 
in his sight — and the people's. 

I fear there was less worship of God that 
morning than pity and solicitude for the 
preacher. Remarks since dropped have re- 
vealed to me that I presented anything but 
a sturdy, robust figure. Not much of the 
stern and unwavering prophetic vigor about 
the preacher's carriage and delivery, I fear; 
but more of a "reed shaken by the wind" I 
must have been. I sometimes marvel at 
the patience of the congregation and their 
willingness to listen again when I think 
what a figure I must have presented, with 
the paleness of a year in hospital on my 
face, a cane in one hand, the other clinging 
to the pulpit. But I think I looked more 
feeble than I felt, for, by the time the 
"preliminaries" were over, the strange, new 
delightful sensation of leading a congrega- 
tion once more in worship had worn off, 
and when I was ready to announce the text 
there was a strength and exultation in my 
spirit which the "flesh" flatly belied. 

The text, I remember, was a strange yet 



FROM CHAIR TO PULPIT 149 

appropriate one. It fitted the circum- 
stances perfectly enough to have been 
sought and applied to this single occasion 
in particular, but it really was an old text 
to me, and one which I could now expound 
and apply with new insight and earnest- 
ness: "Even the youths shall faint and be 
weary, and the young men shall utterly 
fall: but they that wait upon the Lord 
shall renew their strength; they shall mount 
up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and 
not be weary; and they shall walk, and not 
faint." In the afternoon I was taken to 
the "out-appointment" of the church, and 
in the evening attended and directed the 
singing at the young people's meeting. 
Then, after it was all over, and I was back 
in my boarding-house room, I lay down 
with the sweetest sensation of grateful 
weariness that I had known in my life: 
thankful and glad that I had actually been 
able to preach again, though weakly, per- 
haps, and for another whole day to do the 
work of the Master, which I wanted to be 
mine. True, I didn't know whether or not 



150 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

I could do it again; but to do it even once, 
after all dreams of usefulness had been so 
nearly dispelled, was joy enough for one day. 
I thought of the doctors and nurses that 
had seen no hope of my living at all. I 
thought of my mother, who had, like Han- 
nah, set her boy apart for the service of 
God from the first, had cared for him as 
tenderly as a mother always cherishes her 
youngest child, only to see him brought 
home to her paralyzed and helpless below 
the waist — a helpless charge, apparently, 
for life. I thought of that doctor who had 
said I might do some quiet work like 
teaching, but that preaching was out of 
the question. I thought and thought — too 
happy to sleep — until I fell into a restless 
slumber, murmuring praise to God for 
his loving-kindness and his marvelous works 
to the children of men. 

Unreluctant Farewell to the Philosopher 

Now, almost a year is gone since that 
trying Sunday, and the strangest and most 
blessed thing, is that I have stood every 



FROM CHAIR TO PULPIT 151 

Sunday since in that same pulpit which I 
longed (almost against hope) to call "mine." 
The considerate, kindly people of that 
country church were generous enough to 
ask the proper officials to have me stay 
with them after a few weeks 5 trial. It may 
be that they were caught, as many persons 
are who accept goods "on trial" and dis- 
like to return after they have used them. 
But I certainly could not have been re- 
turned labeled "Damaged by use," for 
since I came into the community and 
started to minister to its people I have 
steadily improved. Surpassing even my 
own trustful optimism, I have grown away 
from paralysis, weakness, and every sign 
of invalidism, getting stronger in muscle, 
and more robust in health, till now, as I 
look back on the experience of the two 
years, the only words that express my 
emotion are "a miracle of grace." For 
grace, I believe, extends to body as well as 
soul; and if there is a "new birth" physi- 
cally as well as spiritually I have enjoyed 
that happy experience. 



152 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

"Silently, one by one/ 5 have I dropped 
the canes, until now I do not need one at 
all. There is remaining enough of the 
paralysis (especially in one foot, which I 
cannot move at all) to keep me from vio- 
lating the dancing clause of the Methodist 
Discipline; but, except for a slowness of 
gait, and a liking for railings on stairs, I 
am as well and strong as ever. Of course 
no one, not even Paul, enjoys the "thorns 
in the flesh/' though they keep us from 
being "exalted above measure"; but after 
one has been lifted, wheeled, and carried 
like a baby for a couple of years he is per- 
fectly content to walk slowly or with a 
"hitch" in his gait. 

Thus have I made my sudden debut 
into the "chair of philosophy" and my 
slow, glad exit from the same into the 
pulpit. There is not so much time for 
philosophizing in the active work of min- 
tering, but there is more chance for pure 
religion and undefiled, more chance to 
serve others. And that, after all, is the 
finest thing in the world, that which the 



FROM CHAIR TO PULPIT 153 

Son of man came to do — "not to be minis- 
tered unto, but to minister." Having been 
brought to appreciate that fact, and be 
more content and patient in the same, I 
can truly say that no year of work was 
ever happier than the one just spent in the 
country church parish which so kindly re- 
ceived me when my spirit was willing but 
my flesh so weak to work for them. 

Sometimes, as I count the blessings of this 
one year — a beautiful and loving wife, a 
comfortable home, a widening circle of good 
friends, increasing strength to work in the 
greatest vocation in the world — all these 
benefits well-nigh atone for the two years 
of suffering and uncertainty. Often in the 
days of joyful life and work my mind goes 
back to the long weeks and months, which 
now seem like some bad dream. My fancy 
likes to dwell especially on that morning 
when I was on the carriage bound for an 
operation which held the only faint chance 
of life, when I heard my mother, as she 
turned from the hall window, say to her 
beloved boy: "The sun has burst through 



154 WHEEL-CHAIR PHILOSOPHY 

a great black cloud. It is a sign for us 
that our cloud is to be crowned with glory, 
and that all will be well." Then, as I recall 
the weird experience of gradually losing 
consciousness under the effects of ether, at 
the threshold of the "chamber in the silent 
halls of death," and think of the subse- 
quent marvelous overruling and leading of 
Him who has made "all things work to- 
gether for good," I sing again with stronger 
emphasis the majestic strain which filled 
my heart and seemed to lift my body on 
wings of light from the ether room to the 
gates of heaven : 

For the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth. 
Hallelujah ! Hallelujah ! 

"Here Endeth the First Lesson"; But 

There Is More Further on 

in the Book. 



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